


Across the Universe

by gadgetsandgizmos



Series: my past, my future [2]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/F, Smut, all your feels are belong to me, holtzbert endgame, slowburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-10-07 01:44:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10349604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gadgetsandgizmos/pseuds/gadgetsandgizmos
Summary: Follow-up to 'Spring Fever.'Twelve years after Holtzmann and Erin parted ways in Hawaii, the universe seems determined to throw them into a whirlwind, careening their paths and connecting their hearts yet again. For two dedicated scientists, they sure have played their hand toward intangible fate and unproven principles that feel a lot like destiny, but is the second time really the charm?





	1. Leavin' On a Jet Plane

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again, faithful, beautiful readers!  
> As promised, I give you the first part of the follow-up I promised you. If you haven't read 'Spring Fever,' I might suggest checking it out first so the rest of this can make sense, but there will be enough parts that give the gist of what happened that you should be able to catch on if you want to read it as a stand-alone. I know I left 'SF' on a sad note, perhaps with just a touch of hope for the future, and I wish I could tell you that this is going to be a sappy, smut-fest like the last one, but it's not. It is, however, a love story and I promise - and you may hate me at times, but I mean this because they are my heart - Holtzbert WILL be endgame, and all your waiting will hopefully be worthwhile. Until then, buckle up, kids. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

It was unexpected, to say the very least.

Dr. Wallace, at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wanted to offer her a job.

Her first question had been simple, one that tugged at her heart strings and pulled breath from her lungs as she breathed out the question into the phone.

_Will I have to leave NASA?_

Holtzmann knew that GISS and NASA worked together, but she didn’t know if they _played_ nicely together and sometimes, in the scientific community, that was an issue. Certain scientists and engineers were considered ‘hot commodities’ and ended up the subject of whatever academia’s version of a bidding war was, and then ultimately, the ‘hot commodity’ in question had to choose.

Her loyalty had been to NASA, the big program, since she was in college with her big dreams and bigger hair and eyes focused solely on the stars. Nobody ever doubted that Jillian Holtzmann was a dreamer, but she was one of few who could _accomplish_ as well as dream big, and her accomplishments were lengthy, all on record from several impressive institutions, and now she was one of those precious unicorns that everyone wanted on their team.

When Dr. Wallace assured her – six times, actually – that she would remain with NASA, and that (for now) the position was only crafted as a temporary fix to a bigger problem, she agreed. Holtzmann had never wanted to teach, but the idea of working with college students who were bright-eyed and bushy tailed as she once was, back when she’d wanted little other than getting into NASA’s program, wasn’t wholly unappealing. She’d have her own lab, the college’s incredible resources, supportive colleagues, and the ‘cream of the crop’ of Columbia University’s most promising engineering and robotics students.

Leaving Washington, DC was going to be more difficult than she thought because she’d spent the last seven years getting established, building a life, and she had _friends_ , people who cared about her, people who would miss her, and she didn’t have anyone in New York City. She’d been there a few times – on business, usually – and the noise and lights and sounds of the city bordered on overwhelming, but hey, at least she was out of Pittsburgh, where college had been the only real draw. She’d taken Patty to DC with her, introduced her best friend to a colleague who ended up being the love of her life, and the rest was history. Patty and Nicholas had a daughter who had just turned five – just old enough to _really_ start tinkering – and Holtzmann was the ‘cool aunt.’

Or, according to Patty, she was the ‘dangerous aunt,’ but weren’t the two synonymous, anyway? It wasn’t like she let her little niece hold the blowtorches… yet.

But it wasn’t going to be forever.

That’s what Holtzmann told herself when she gave teary hugs and long goodbyes at the airport while her people saw her off.

That’s what she told herself when the plane took off and she traced the window with fingertips and watched the skyline disappear beneath the clouds.

It was only temporary.

DC was her home.

 

* * *

 

 

“Don’t forget, your midterm assignment will be on _Thursday_ , so I’ll need those lab reports and group summaries in by no later than _Wednesday_ ,” Erin called after a few of her students as they scurried toward the door, eager to be dismissed – she liked to think it was to study up for midterms, but nobody _ever_ liked Mondays. They were probably off to play hacky-sack in the quad or eat entire foot-long sandwiches and smoke joints behind the dumpster for all she knew. Most of them were good enough to keep their grades from slipping, and while some of her more basic Physics courses were required material – and drew a mixed bag of students – she appreciated her influence on _all_ young minds, not just the ones who showed real potential in her upper level courses and reminded her a lot of herself and Abby when they were wide-eyed youngsters, eager to take every science and math course that they could feasibly cram into one semester.

Erin pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and pulled her phone out of her desk drawer, noticing that she had three texts from Abby.

Reminders.

Reminders that she was getting older, tomorrow.

As if she’d forgotten.

_Relax, babe, it’s not like you’re 45 yet._

Erin sighed and pinched her nose where her glasses had been sitting as they fell slightly, then responded to the last text. Abby meant well – she really did – but Erin didn’t ever like the reminders that some of her best years were behind her. An optimist might say that the best years were yet to come, and she wasn’t counting any of that out, but she was on a track where she was… comfortable, more than expecting some unfounded adventure to come out of nowhere and whisk her away.

 _Next year, big whoop._ _One year off makes a huge difference, Abs._

She’d gotten tenure at Columbia – she and Abby both had – and it was everything she wanted. When she’d first gotten the offer, her life had been… different.

Erin had just put money down on a fabulous brownstone that was only about ten minutes from campus. It was her own money, too, funds she’d saved and squirreled away throughout the years when she could have been out living a more glamorous lifestyle, but that had never appealed to her. When she did take vacations, it was a rare event that usually involved mild pressure and goading from her eternally wild, fun-loving, incredible best friend.

She’d moved her then-boyfriend, Mark, into the brownstone six months after purchasing it.

Within the next year, they were married.

Two years later, she was finalizing divorce papers.

Now, she still had her brownstone, she still had Abby, and she still had her tenure. Erin had her drive, her passion, her students, and the knowledge that she was really making a difference in the world by molding the next generation. She had resources at her disposal, had been published nationally and internationally in different, well-respected scientific journals, and while she hadn’t been on the cusp of scientific discovery, she had done very well for herself.

She didn’t even mind being single, because she’d learned that there was more to life than coupledom, and she had spent the last two years working on herself, discovering that she was whole and complete, capable and strong, all on her own.

Abby joked, of course, that it was her fierce independence that had always kept her so young – even though they were the same age – and even tried one of her old ‘we’ll get you under someone new’ approaches when Erin had been lonely, drinking wine in her apartment and listening to old vinyl records, trying to find solace in where it all had gone wrong. But she never took her friend up on those offers; instead, she was introspective, doing her equations on herself for a change, and taking stock in the kind of life she wanted to create by herself, as Erin Gilbert, no ‘plus one’ necessary.

And it was liberating.

Besides, she never really noticed a spark anymore, when she met new people. A part of her started mapping out when it would end, if it began, drawing hypothetical conclusions and mapping out potential outcomes in her mind within the span of _seconds_ whenever she got the occasional invite to coffee, drinks, dancing, dinner… she got them semi-frequently, and it was flattering that she still could draw potential suitors – men _and_ women – but nobody ever seemed to _see_ her, and maybe that just meant her standards were too high.

As a scientist, it was illogical to rule out possibilities before they were well-tested, so that was her next hypothesis.

_I’ll buy you a stripper for 45, if it’ll make you stop whining. Male or female, or both. Both?_

Erin laughed at her phone’s newest text, then placed the device into her purse as she made her way toward the door, turning off the lights in the lecture hall before exiting. She had two hours between classes which gave her plenty of time to grab a bite to eat from the café across the street – she had a mountain of paperwork to do, and it was always a perfect place to get some much needed quiet and get her out of the office, which typically ended up being something of a revolving door of students at the most inconvenient moments.

Not that she minded – Erin much preferred when her students came to her for assistance when they were in need – but sometimes, a woman just needed some time for herself.

 _Especially_ because she was a day away from 44.

 

* * *

 

 

Columbia _smelled_ stuffy. Every person Holtzmann passed was buttoned-up, wearing odd patterns – tweed and argyle – and it was _awful_. The _worst_. Honestly, she’d expected some of the professors to be hoity-toity, but she even got the same vibe from students, young people who should have been full of life, ready to take on the world, but the energy here was stagnant. The halls moved in a sea of efficiency, and she got a few less than subtle sideways glances as she made her way toward the science wing.

Holtz ignored them all.

During her college years, she’d stopped making apologies for who and what she was – she was too loud, _fine_. Too bright? _Excellent_. Not someone’s cup of tea? So she’d find someone who _did_ want her, no skin off her teeth. Patty had encouraged this change of heart, so to speak, helped Holtz revel in her wild, unbridled, quirky ferocity. All the mania, all the 80’s dance pop that played in the lab at Carnegie Mellon, it all sank in to intertwine with her DNA, and Holtzmann _knew,_ sure as she knew she wanted to work for NASA, who she was, and there was no going back. There was no need.

Because she ended up _building robots in space_ , and that was fucking awesome.

A particularly grumpy, rotund man with a name-badge and a toupee had the gall to let his sidelong glance _linger_ , and the eccentric blonde watched his expression morph from confusion to disdain. She smiled at him, flashed bright, straight teeth and a dimpled grin, and pressed two fingers to the space just beside her temple in a salute, then passed him by, whistling and thumbing the straps of her overalls as she made her way into the science-y part of her self-guided tour of Columbia. The part that was supposed to be her new home – or her home away from home - and she was _hoping_ it would be a little more unglued, or at least house some _different_ scenery where basic nouns were concerned.

_And if not, that’s a pretty good place for me to start – this whole joint is gonna get Holtzmann’d._

As her eyes scanned the hallways, she saw a few brightly colored bulletin boards, mostly for outside advertisements, a display case with some awards from various contests, pictures of alumni and current students who excelled at math and science-related aspects of academia, a few generic posters that were probably meant to be inspirational, a fire extinguisher – and _oh,_ they’d need to get _more_ of those if she was going to be working here – and then Holtz continued forward, adjusting the yellow goggles over her eyes because suddenly, the world was too much and she started to wonder if maybe she’d made a mistake. At Carnegie Mellon, she’d found a safe space in her lab eventually, but it had taken a long time and an act of odd interaction on the universe’s part to instill some goddamn _confidence_ in her during one particularly memorable spring break.

At NASA, she’d always felt complete, like everything she’d been working toward had culminated in a flash and color, and for the first time in her academic life, she hadn’t needed to force anything. She was surrounded by other glorious weirdos that were just like – well, maybe not _just_ like her – but they were the island of misfit toys in the robotics branch that she basically captained these days, or had, before she’d accepted this temporary job. Everything was fine back in DC, she knew, or it would be – she had people, good people, who were looking after everything in her personal life and work life, and they’d all assured her that everything would be just as she left it when she returned in eight months.

When her glasses were on, acting as a dampener, they were meant to keep out the strain of everything being too much. The roboticist took a much-needed breath, stabilizing herself. Holtz swallowed her nerves, trying to discern that she could be comfortable here, she could _handle_ eight months of a new place and a slew of new faces, but she just needed a minute. As she took the time to breathe, managing each inhale and exhale, counting her breaths as she walked, Holtzmann was stirred by the scent of jasmine floating in the air, stronger as she made her way down the hallway. Her mind triggered an immediate memory, a phantom string of images that brought a fond, soft smile to her face and suddenly, her spirits were lifted, soothed by her olfactory sense that held her with a gentle touch and suspended her in that moment until she heard heels clicking rhythmically in her direction and snapped free of the memory’s hold.

First, she blinked. Once, then twice.

Her jaw dropped a second later.

Third, she whipped the glasses off her face, balancing them by spearing them, lopsided, into her wild up-do.

Was she _hallucinating_ , now?

Her hands were so shaky, she almost dropped her glasses a second before she managed to secure them, not knowing whether they were going to stay put and finding that she didn’t care. A quiet, shaky exhale left her as time slowed down around her and she finally found herself standing still, slack-jawed in the middle of the hallway.

Erin’s hair was the same color, but it was _longer_ now, pin-straight as it fell past her shoulders. Her shorter bangs had been exchanged for a sideways swish, they were longer, and Holtz couldn’t tell if they fell that way intentionally, or if she just fidgeted with them enough to make them lean to the left of her gorgeous face.

Her gorgeous face that was, save for the addition of years and time, a perfect conjuration of some of Holtz’s favorite memories to date. It was only when she got a little closer that the blonde could see remnants of smile lines that were a little deeper than the ones she could remember tracing with her thumbs, kissing until the older woman giggled, and fawning over every time she _did_ smile. She had crow’s feet, but they added to her beauty, and weren’t severe – she guessed Erin wasn’t fond of them, because she’d worried about getting them years and _years_ ago.  

She was wearing glasses and stuffy tweed that might have very well been a uniform of sorts for all the professors at Columbia, as far as Holtz could tell.

“Excuse me, but where did you manage to find the world’s _tiniest_ bow tie?”

Erin stopped dead in her tracks and dropped her bag on the ground at the mere sound of the other woman’s voice, causing a few of its contents to spill into the hallway. Immediately, Holtz was on them like a shot – she gathered a compact, chapstick, Erin’s cell phone, and a tiny notebook into her arms along with the professor’s purse and gingerly handed them back to her. For the first time in what felt like forever, their eyes met, and Holtz gave Erin that signature, dimpled smile. Their hands brushed as Erin’s personal items were transferred back to their rightful owner and she busied herself with rearranging everything before she could finally speak.

Before she spoke, however, she traced Holtzmann with her eyes from head to toe and Holtz did the same. The blonde could see Erin’s hands visibly twitch at her sides, almost like she wanted to reach out and touch her to prove if she was real, but the older woman refrained, and seemed pained by doing so.

“You’re wearing a crop top and overalls in an academic institution,” Erin deadpanned, and her voice was exactly how Holtz remembered it, too.

“I am indeed,” Holtzmann nodded, shoving her hands into deep pockets because suddenly they had no other, logical place to go.

“You’re _here_ ,” Erin breathed, looking at the woman in front of her like she was a ghost. For a second, the blonde thought she saw Erin’s eyes well up, and hers had stung, too, but only for a second, just a pinprick of emotion that washed over her. For a second, it was almost like she was 21 again, like they were back in Hawaii.

But they weren’t.

They were in the hallway at Columbia University, somewhere she’d dreamed of going for months and months and _months_ after they’d parted ways, but she never dared.

“ _Why_ are you here?”

It wasn’t said unkindly, like she didn’t want to see her. If anything, it was exhaled on the winds of pained curiosity.

“Job offer. Apparently, your head honchos need someone to hold down robotics and engineering over at GISS,” Holtzmann responded, because when they’d first called her and said _Columbia_ , her mind had immediately jumped to Erin, but the years changed people, goals changed, ambitions faltered, life took unexpected turns. “They found me.”

“Are you… are you building robots in space?”

Holtz chuckled and rubbed the back of her neck.

“Yeah, for NASA. I basically run that ship, these days. O Captain, their Captain,” she continued, noting the flicker of pride that immediately surged in Erin’s eyes when she did a little salute that was just a little bit overdramatic. “You got your tenure, right? That’s why you’re still here? Because if they didn’t give it to you, I’d hope you’d go somewhere else… somewhere where they’d _appreciate_ you.”

“I did. Abby, too.”

Holtzmann sighed, her smile getting bigger by the second.

“Abby, too.”

“I guess this goes to show how much I pay attention to what’s happening with my colleagues,” Erin said, laughing softly and stumbling over the word _colleague_ for a second, because she supposed that’s what they were, now. “Maybe paying closer attention would spare me this… this…” Suddenly, the brilliant professor was at a loss for words.

Holtz interjected, finding the most natural response was one Erin had said to her so many times before.

“I know.” The two women paused, still looking each other over, delighted and shocked and unsure of what to do or say. “I get it.”

“How long?” Erin asked, realizing that her question wasn’t complete, then clarified. “How long are you here?” They’d always been on borrowed time; it seemed to be their thing, a pattern, if ever they had one.

“Eight months,” Holtz said, nodding. “They set me up with a place – just a little studio, but it’s nice – pretty close by. Ten minutes or so, but that’s New York time stuff, and I’m used to DC.”

“Ten minutes is close. That’s, um… that’s about how far away I live,” Erin said, trying not to think about just how _close_ they’d be – geographically as well as working in the same building – for eight whole months.

“Solid,” Holtz replied. “So, hey… let me address the elephant in the room for a second here, okay?”

Erin coughed and sputtered because _this_ side of the blonde was unexpected, and not at all in a bad way. If anything, the way she had aged and matured made Erin flutter inside, made her weak in her knees, made her question every aspect of her own sanity.

“Please,” Erin said, holding her hands up to let Holtzmann know it was okay, that she had no objections, because she knew they had to talk about it _sometime_ , so why not immediately?

“For the longest time, I thought we were three sheets passing in the night. I never forgot you. I never forgot… us,” Holtzmann said, her voice lowering, soft and reflective, housing fondness and something else Erin couldn’t quite peg. Her eyes never left the professor’s, and Erin was grateful for that, for the firm, grounding contact and the kindness she could see in the blonde’s eyes. It was that same glimmer of pure levity that she remembered, a facet of her that she suspected would never, ever change no matter what time did to interfere. “But I don’t want you to think that working together is going to… complicate anything. For you. For us.”

Erin breathed a sigh of relief.

“Okay,” Erin replied, smiling. “But you… you’re still using those wrong.”

“Am I?” Holtz asked, the goofy smile returning to her face as she scratched her head.

While she wouldn’t want to put her career or Holtzmann’s at risk in any way, shape, or form, the older woman still longed for her. She’d be lying to herself if she said she never thought of Holtz – she did, all the time – and she’d be triggered by the most random things, as if the universe wanted to remind her that her former lover was never really that far away. The notion that they could proceed… somehow… and not put their work at risk was comforting, and it emboldened Erin just like it had when they were back at the Tiki bar, when they’d first met and she’d decided to take a chance on a woman ten years her junior.

“Hey, so I was thinking…”

She was headed to lunch, and maybe Holtz could join her? They’d have enough time to catch up, she could invite her to whatever shindig Abby decided to throw for her birthday, and while she wasn’t foolish enough to think they could rekindle their spark immediately, there was still _something_ between them, and maybe they’d been in the right place at the wrong time before. That didn’t mean it was wrong _now_. Sometimes, the pieces just sort of… fell together, like they had, once upon a time.

Holtz’s phone rang – the sound of a musical gong – inside her pocket and her eyes widened.

“Shit, hold that thought, would you? I’m so, so sorry,” Holtz said, then swiped her finger across the touch screen. “Yello,” she answered, then walked a couple paces away, out of earshot, and Erin found herself waiting, her heart soaring in her chest as she thought of all the things she’d always wanted to say to Holtz that she never thought she’d get the opportunity to express.

Everything _did_ happen for a reason.

Twice, the universe had tilted her axis in Holtzmann’s direction.

That _had_ to mean something.

A couple minutes later, the blonde approached her with an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, that was my fiancée. She was just calling to check in, see how my first day’s going, but it’s… it’s barely even started,” Holtz said, chuckling a little and shaking her head. Erin watched her face morph into a slow, easy smile at what had to be a pleasant thought. A very happy thought.

Erin’s heart sank into her stomach.

For a second, she thought she was going to vomit.

Her temperature dropped and her skin was clammy, everything spun into a painful blur, like vertigo.

Of _course_ Holtz had somebody.

It had been _twelve_ years. What did she think, that Holtz would be unlucky in love like her?

Most of all, other than the pain and sudden sadness, Erin felt stupid for thinking that she could get her hopes up like they could just… pick right up where they left off, like distance hadn’t separated them, like they ever really had a chance to begin with.

“Your fiancée?”

“Yeah, she’s back in DC,” Holtz said, her hands falling back into those ridiculously baggy pockets. “We’re… we’re adjusting to the long-distance thing. Anyway, what were you saying, Erin?”

“Oh, ha. You should let me give you a proper tour of campus when you have the time. I can help you get your bearings,” Erin said, changing her tune on a dime. Holtz smiled and nodded.

“That sounds really great. I’d love that.”

“Then it’s a plan,” Erin said, shoving her bag back on her shoulder as she looked past Holtzmann, toward the door she’d been headed toward originally, before she’d gotten distracted. “Hey, it was really good seeing you.”

Erin was jarred by the sound of her own voice, but didn’t show it. Her face didn’t crack for a second. To get her tenure, she had to kiss a lot of different kinds of asses for a lot of years. She had to smile and pretend, she had to make nice and be pleasant even when she was uncomfortable, trying to make a name for herself in the boys’ club of scientific academia. She was used to fake-smiling her way through any unpleasant emotions.

She just never thought she’d have to deploy that skill – a skill she _hated_ being good at – with Holtzmann, of all people.

“Yeah, you look… you look great, Erin,” the blonde replied, tucking a strand of her hair out of her eyes as it fell across her face. “I’ll be seein’ you around, then.”

“Yes, you will,” Erin said softly, knowing she couldn’t keep the façade up for much longer. “Have a nice first day, Holtzmann.”

And, with that, she walked past the blonde and hurried past the door just as fast as her feet could take her.

As soon as she was out of sight, away from where _anyone_ could see, Erin slumped against a wall, brought her knees up to her chest, and started to cry.

 

* * *

 

 

Holtzmann stood in the middle of the hallway, blank and empty, her body completely still. For a second, she wondered if her heart was even still beating.

Slowly, she lowered her glasses and positioned them back over her eyes, needing them to act against all the pain and confusion that was washing over her like a rip tide, determined to drag her out to sea against brutal currents that would surely drown her, if she let them.

She _loved_ Casey.

She really, _really_ did.

So… why did she feel so fucking _awful_?


	2. It's My Party (I'll Cry If I Want To)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the angst train! This is your conductor speaking. I've tried to warn you guys, but I PROMISE there will be bright, fluffy clouds of goodness down the road. It's all part of their story, and sometimes the best stories have rough beginnings. Or really good beginnings and rough middles, however you'd like to think of it. Anyway, thank you all from the bottom of my heart for jumping on board with this - and me - and I hope you love this chapter as much as I love writing for all of you.

Erin’s birthday had ended up being a simple affair, just her and Abby out for drinks at one of the local haunts they both liked. Their taste in bars had changed, throughout the years, because they wanted different things out of life. Abby was still determined to get her itches scratched by random, attractive strangers from time to time, but when she wasn’t out _looking_ , she was content to be the life of the party. Erin didn’t go to bars to look for attractive strangers anymore – she had no interest in dating, not after so many failures – but when she did go for a night cap outside of the coziness of her own home, she liked quiet. She liked the warmth of a pub versus the booming bass of a dance club or the elegance of a more upscale lounge. She liked to occasionally eat deep-fried treats and sip a beer even if it wasn’t necessarily good for her health or her waistline; now that she had breached 40, she _worried_ about these things even though Abby told her constantly that her ‘stick figure’ would never change, and she just shrugged it off, laughed, and swore by her subscription to an online work-out program that she could do from the comfort of her own home, as she wasn’t one to sweat and labor for exercise in public, around other people who were likely more physically fit and health-conscious than she.

“You’re zoning,” Abby said, nudging Erin with a shoulder as she gave her friend a small smile, mostly because she couldn’t figure out what, precisely, was going on in the other professor’s head. “Wanna talk about it?”

“I don’t know what there is to talk about,” Erin murmured, tracing her finger around the same cocktail she’d been drinking for an hour. It wasn’t her usual, but after recent events, even her _usual_ didn’t sound good, so she’d settled on something new. Something different. She needed to, she realized, to keep herself from having a back foot lodged in the past. Her mind had already been spinning since she’d seen Holtzmann in the hallway, since she’d learned that the blonde was not only going to be working at Columbia, with her, but Erin’s _thing_ , the thing she’d secretly longed for, her one pipe dream that always brought sunshine to her darkest days, was now unequivocally impossible when before it had been improbable, at best.

“I don’t know why you went with a margarita, Erin. You don’t even like tequila,” Abby said, rolling off Erin’s blasé ‘I don’t know’ statement with one of her own as if it was the most natural conclusion she could spring to at that moment. “We could talk about that. About why you’re not being… _you_ right now.”

“It’s nothing,” Erin said, swirling the straw in the half-melted ice. It occurred to her that she’d never get a buzz going if she allowed her drink to become mostly water. It hadn’t doubled in size, but it stayed about the same height because the ice had melted, leaving her without having any progress made. The professor sighed; she was at the point of the night where she was literally watching _ice melt in her glass_ , so maybe she did need to get a buzz going. Erin abandoned the straws, tucking them aside on the soaked coaster underneath her glass and picked it up, chugging it quickly and chewing on the ice when solid cubes rested on her tongue. Erin licked at the remnants of salt on her lips and were glad that, for once, it wasn’t salty because of all the tears she’d spilled in the past 24 hours.

“Yeah, that’s _not_ nothing, actually. You babied that for 45 minutes and then decided to turn it into a shot. You’re thinking something, Gilbert. Talk to me,” Abby pressed, doing so in the way only a best friend could, and placed her hand on top of Erin’s. She craned forward, making sure the other woman looked her in the eyes, and Erin sighed.

“I guess you’re going to find out eventually,” Erin said, because she was surprised Abby _hadn’t_ heard, but maybe she was the only one so lucky as to have her past literally come up and catch her gobsmacked in the hallway at work. At _work_ , which was supposed to be her sanctuary and her place where she had to behave with the utmost of professionalism and decorum, because she was a tenured professor, and she’d spent an hour crying outside by the dumpsters and then her office, repeating the waterworks into a sandwich because she’d taken her lunch to go. “Did you hear who they picked for Dr. Keiser’s replacement?”

“They picked a replacement? I was kind of sad to see the guy go,” Abby mused, totally getting off and away from Erin’s point. “He was spineless, and the kids walked _all over him_ – that engineering crowd is a rough one – but he was nice, and kind of funny once you got to know him. Do you know where he went?”

“It doesn’t matter where he went, Abby,” Erin said, sighing into her glass as she placed it back on the coaster.

“Rude! I know you weren’t really close with him or anything, but he was a colleague, so you’d think it’d behoove you to care a _little_ ,” Abby chided.

“No, it doesn’t matter because it’s _Holtzmann_ ,” Erin said, emphasizing the woman’s name, knowing that Abby had to remember because there had been conversations, over the years, where she’d gotten drunk on her best friend’s floor or the floor of her own apartment, and she’d been… wistful. After her divorce, especially, there had been those nights where she’d recalled back to warm nights in Hawaii when she’d been wrapped up in the blonde, and Abby hadn’t even bothered to stop her from waxing poetic about some details that she probably didn’t want to hear, but they were both drunk, and she felt like humoring her newly-divorced friend who was getting ready to breach 40.

“What’s Holtzmann? Erin, you’re not even drunk, why are you talking about Holtzmann?”

“Because Holtzmann took the job,” Erin replied, giving her friend a pointed look that she hoped would be enough to fill in the blanks because it hurt her hear to even say the blonde’s _name_ , let alone talk about this when she was sober. Crying. Crying on her birthday. That was _definitely_ going to happen.

“Wait. Whoa,” Abby said, holding up her hands. “Holtzmann… _your_ Holtzmann, she took the job at GISS? That’s what you’re telling me? That’s what’s fucking wrong with you?”

“She’s _not_ my Holtzmann,” Erin said sharply, and she winced at her own words as soon as they left her mouth. “Abby, I’m sorry, I just…”

Abby responded without a hitch. The good thing – maybe one of the _best_ things – about their friendship was that it was solid. It had always been solid, and they had their fights and their disagreements, but they were always minor. In the grander scheme or things, they were each other’s rock, an absolute in a whirlwind of ‘what if’s’ and scathing uncertainty; she could depend on Abby to understand her at her very best and very worst, because she’d seen it all. Every shade of the Erin Gilbert rainbow, and probably a few shades that even she couldn’t discern, parts of herself that she couldn’t gauge because it was only on display for the outside world.

“Okay, so this _isn’t_ a good thing. I can… I can talk to her, see if maybe she’ll… go?”

“No, you absolutely can’t do that,” Erin said, but she loved that Abby would even be willing to try.

“Tell me how to fix this, because I can see how much you’re hurting.”

The bartender approached them, and Abby looked at her, then at him and smiled.

“She’ll have another, but not one of those. Erin?”

“Malibu and pineapple, please,” she mumbled, hating herself for not being able to deviate from anything that felt so good and familiar.

“Another vodka soda for me,” Abby said, then squeezed Erin’s hand, glad that she had a minute to gather her thoughts before continuing. “Why are you hurting? I would think… Erin, this could be a _great_ thing for you. We’ve talked about… God, we’ve talked about Holtz a lot, and it always seemed like you kind of wanted a second chance, and what if this is it? You’re always too scared to chase after what’s good for you and I said it back then and I’ll say it again now, but Holtz made you _really_ happy.”

The tears started as soon as Abby uttered the last word, and Abby’s eyes widened immediately, arms shooting out to hug Erin and pull her in against her shoulder. The bartender set their drinks down and put his hands up, quietly excusing himself, and Abby mouthed a ‘thank you’ over Erin’s shoulder.

“I _did_ want a second chance, Abs, but I can’t have it cause she’s--- she’s _engaged_ and I’m so fucking stupid,” Erin sobbed, and Abby made soft shushing sounds as she stroked her friend’s hair.

“Okay, so we’re crying on your birthday, at least it’s not ‘cause you’re getting older?” The joke was lame and they both knew it. Erin laughed, hot and sharp and through her copious amounts of pain and heartache. She sniffled and straightened in her seat, then wrapped her fingers around the new glass and pulled it to her mouth, sipping slowly through the straw until she had drained half the glass in seconds. “Attagirl.” Abby patted her shoulder and smiled.

“I feel stupid because as soon as I saw her, I started thinking about how maybe we could try to get to know each other again, for _real_ this time, and see if maybe… maybe there are sparks left, you know?”

“Yeah, that’s… that’s logical, I mean… you cared about her a lot.”

Abby knew Erin loved her.

Erin knew it, too.

She’d admitted it one night when she’d had _way_ too much to drink, before she’d started dating Mark, and it had scared her so much she’d dropped herself into the first relationship that seemed like a good idea – seemed like it was logical, simple enough to work and maybe stick because she couldn’t bear the thought of loving some girl she’d bedded in Hawaii. She couldn’t love the girl who had tried _multiple_ times to get ahold of her after they’d parted ways, and was met with radio silence from Erin every time because she thought she was doing Holtz a favor by not allowing her to take chances that could jeopardize her future. She’d ignored the texts, the occasional phone call, and Holtzmann was _never_ pushy, eventually limiting her attempts at contact solely to major holidays or the professor’s birthday – because she _always_ remembered, or always used to – then eventually stopped all of it, out of the blue.

So Erin knew she deserved this.

She deserved this because she’d _had_ her shot, and she’d thrown it away.

Neither of them would say the dreaded L word, because it would add weight to a situation that was already holding Erin’s head below water and letting her sink deep into the doldrums.

A loud slurping sound brought Erin away from her thoughts; she had reached the bottom of her glass, signaled the bartender for another, and the replacement was quick.

It was gone just as quickly, too.

 

* * *

 

 

“So maybe I just… just pick a random surrogate, you know? Some hot blonde that could maybe pass for her because, because I’m _drunk_ now,” Erin hiccupped as she slid her fifth drink across the bar, almost knocking it over. Abby chuckled, because she was a little bit buzzed, but nowhere near her friend’s level. “And maybe that would be enough to convince my stupid brain that we just fucked and now it’s over. Itch scratched, problem solved, working relationship mended.”

Erin made a motion like she was dusting off her hands and started to scan the bar.

“I’m not one to ever tell someone that random, half-drunken sex is a bad idea, you _know_ me, but this is a bad idea… for you,” Abby said. “It’s a bad idea for you tonight, birthday girl, because you’re already gonna be hungover tomorrow and if it backfires and you realize it’s _not_ Holtz, you’re gonna be weepy and hungover _at work_.”

“Fuck it,” Erin said, spinning on her stool and chirping, delighted, a second later. “This spins, did you _know_ that?”

“Maybe not… spinning, Erin, because…”

Erin’s hands hit her knees a second or two later.

“Ooh, it spins, Abby… so much spinning.”

“We should… we should get you home, Er,” Abby said, easing her hands over Erin’s shoulders and helping her out of the chair. She stabilized the tall redhead for a second, essentially propping her up against the bar, and slapped money down on the counter to cover their tab and a hefty tip.

“But what about my surrogate?”

“No surrogates for you.”

“Abby?”

The shorter woman looked at her, an eyebrow lifted, because she thought Erin was going to get to the argumentative stage of her drunkenness and wanted to prepare.

“You’re a great friend,” Erin said, placing a kiss on her friend’s dimpled cheek and almost falling over as she moved away from the bar.

“Yeah, yeah,” Abby replied. “And you’re a drunk gazelle.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Erin beamed, clearly having no idea what her friend had just said, only the tone in which she’d said it. Abby laughed before tucking Erin under her arm as best as she could with their height difference and helped Erin toward the door.

“Abby?”

“Uh-huh?”

“I’m gonna vomit,” Erin said confidently, and at least she was confident in something. Abby had dealt with this numerous times, and she was glad that – for a moment, at least – Erin had a reprieve from all the sorrowful crying.

“We’ll find you a plant or something while I get us a cab. It’s all good, babe.”

 

* * *

 

 

Erin was grateful that she had a lighter case load when she sluggishly rolled into her office the next morning. She was grateful that she always adopted a ‘don’t wait’ policy when it came to grading papers and doing lesson plans – she was meticulous to the letter, and only a handful of her students appreciated that she came prepared, but today, she honestly didn’t give a shit about what any of them thought. She would saddle up to a steaming mug of hot water with some honey and lemon after school hours and grade any early bird lab reports and projects to get them out of the way, and revel in the fact that most of her students were _never_ early with turning things in. Not for this class, at least.

Because they were heading into midterms, she could allow for a ‘study day’ and seem benevolent; she’d gone over all the information they’d needed for the exams and final reports, but college students at this level were usually eager to hang on any bout of proposed independence, and usually it was Erin who struggled with letting go and allowing them to either sink or swim because she was an _educator_ , but most of the time, she could see in their eyes that a ‘study day’ was a welcome reprieve to her going over the same information twice in a week. She’d be there to answer questions, sitting at her desk with an open notebook of plans and her own, private research, but Erin knew that she felt too terrible to accomplish anything, so it’d just be for show. To keep up appearances, especially because she didn’t want any of her students catching wise to the fact that she had suffered from too much to drink the night before.

This was why she always, _always_ drank in bars that were far enough away from Columbia that the odds of her bumping into any of her students were low. Erin didn’t get drunk often, even in the comfort of her own home on weekends, but sometimes she liked to get a good buzz going, and usually Abby was the instigator for ‘going out’ because her friend would reach a point where Erin’s gently worded text messages that refused polite offers to join her for socialization in public were no longer being regarded kindly. Simply put, Abby got tired of taking ‘no’ for an answer and was apt to show up at her doorstep ready to drag her out ass into the world, if necessary. Erin never actually let her to get the point where she was physically ejected from her own home, but there had been threats made.

As she predicted, her students were delighted for the quiet time to focus on their projects and have the extra time – with her present – to answer questions as they came up. Erin forged ahead with a reasonable amount of success and decorum, even though she got queasy in the middle of a particularly charged conversation about subatomic physics and Lise Meitner, but she made it through. In the quiet minutes, she found her mind starting to drift, because it was hard enough to keep her composure and not give away what she’d been doing the night before, but it was _harder_ not to think about Holtzmann and what the roboticist might have been doing at that exact moment.

Maybe she’d end up hating Columbia.

Maybe she’d end up _loving_ it.

Erin couldn’t decide which was better and which was worse. She tried to rack her poor, tired brains to find a third option – or multiple options – but she’d been up late, praying to the Porcelain Gods, and Abby had been there with her, holding her hair back and rubbing her back and soothing her, especially when she’d ended up having another crying fit. A crying fit followed by a panic attack, and it was just _not_ how she’d wanted to spend her birthday.

Which got her thinking about how she’d _rather_ have spent her birthday.

In a perfect world, her reunion with Holtz would have ended a lot differently.

In some ways, Erin wanted it to end much like it had begun – hot and fast, two bodies just _knowing_ in a few moments that they were meant to collide. It would be soft, at first, a gentle reintroduction to each other; they would catch up, over coffee, talk about what they’d been doing for what really seemed like their entire lives because so much could happen in a single year, let alone twelve. She’d ask about Patty and Holtz would inquire about Abby, they’d exchange funny stories and Holtz would make her laugh that way she always had before, until her sides hurt and it was hard to breathe. Erin would pay, but Holtz would fight her for the check, and then their hands would meet.

They’d speak with a single glance, like they always had before.

And then… then Holtz would lean in. Her new, mature, _confident_ Holtz who seemed to know exactly what she wanted. She was a leading roboticist at NASA, for Christ’s sake. Erin’s fingertips brushed her lips as she continued to get lost in bittersweet daydreams.

Holtz would be so sure, but she’d wait, just to ensure Erin wanted it as much as she did. In truth, Erin had no doubt that she’d want it more as that perfect face glided closer to hers. She longed to feel those rough fingertips – roughened, she imagined, by years and hard work – across her cheek, down her jawline as Holtz pulled Erin’s mouth to meet hers.

They’d kiss, and it’d make the pain of being apart for twelve years melt away.

They’d kiss, and all would be forgiven.

Erin could finally forgive herself.

Then, she imagined, they’d go back to her place.

They’d get lost in each other, in hands and tangled limbs, in bedsheets that would be torn and ruined before the night was over, and then… then Holtz would kiss her again and again, sending her to the stars and grounding her to the earth, and she’d whisper _Happy Birthday, Erin_ after her body had too much, and yet still wanted to give the blonde so much more. All of her, if she could.

And _that_ would be the perfect birthday.

“Professor Gilbert, are you okay?”

She blinked and adjusted her glasses, which had fallen almost entirely off her face as she looked down at her paper and found that what had once been a concise string of words had become… jumbles. There were marks across the words she’d neatly etched, lines drug by the pen as her hand had slipped, her mind wandering off to another world. A better world, she thought, than this cruel universe she had found herself living within. One of her students – Andrew – looked at her with a kind smile on his face.

“I’m fine. Did you need something?”

She straightened in her chair, trying to will her spine to be steel and her shoulders squared. Confident, like a tenured professional should be, not some malingerer who had little else to do but while hours away with her head in the clouds.

“Class is over. Did you want us to stick around for anything else?”

 _Shit_.

She hadn’t even looked at the time.

“No, there’s nothing else. You all are free to go,” she said, clearing her throat and raising her voice to address the other eyes that were all tuned on her, some perplexed and others curious, but they said nothing and shuffled from their seats, gathering their bags and notes, and filed toward the door until the room was empty and she was, again, alone with her thoughts.

Erin threw her glasses across her desk and listened to their clatter echo in the large space. She held her head in her hands and tried to focus on her breathing, tried to focus on anything that would get her through this miserable day.

 _Eight months. You’re going to need to get through eight fucking months of this_.

A knock at the door made her look up, and when she did, she wanted the Earth to fissure and swallow her whole, right then and there.

“Erin?”

Holtzmann was standing there, shifting her weight from one foot to another as she hovered in the doorway. The same yellow glasses she had yesterday were present again, over her stunning blue eyes again and Erin thought maybe that was _better_ to have a shield to keep her from seeing Jillian Holtzmann in all her glory; it could be a shield to keep her from drowning in those glorious cobalt crystals just to end her miserable existence.

“Is it okay if I come in?”

The second question – the first wasn’t technically one, but it had been uttered as such – made her realize that she’d been silent for too long. Longer than was appropriate, and Holtz looked even more nervous because of it.

“Sure, of course,” she said, and the voice from yesterday, the one that was fake and hollow, was back at the forefront of her words. Holtz nodded and made her way toward where Erin was seated, a soft smile on her face. “What can I do for you?”

“I, um… I know you don’t have any way of contacting me anymore, unless you looked me up in the staff directory but, _ha,_ that seems unlikely,” Holtzmann began, wringing her hands around _something_ and it was then that Erin realized that she’d been holding something. It was a medium-sized box, wrapped up in newsprint, tied with a shiny, metallic blue bow. “I would have called, but you probably changed your number… and you probably had plans with Abby or something, but I got you something.”

Erin tried to fight back tears any way she could, but failed. They didn’t fall, and it was an act of mercy. She widened her eyes and blinked, taking a stiff breath as she focused on the package and not on Holtz’s face as she looked at her, so softly, through those yellow glasses. Erin’s heart could only take looking for a second, just long enough to see the shy expression, the purse of her lips, the press of a dimple against her cheek.

“You shouldn’t have,” Erin breathed out.

“Why not?”

It was so simple, the question, so _Jillian_ and there were a thousand things Erin could have said, a thousand ways she could have responded.

_Because you’re engaged._

_Because you don’t love me back._

_Because we haven’t spoken to each other in twelve years._

_Because this will hurt me more, knowing you care, and you should know better._

“That’s very sweet of you, Holtzmann,” she said, skipping over the blonde’s question entirely. “Thank you.”

“It isn’t much. Just… something that I hoped might make your birthday a little happier,” Holtz responded, and it was with a tone that let the professor know she _knew_ that Erin was struggling, that she was sad, and of course she knew. Holtz may have been awkward with socialization, with understanding how to properly communicate with people – at least, by society’s ridiculous standards – but she _understood_ people, or at least people she knew. She was very perceptive, incredibly sharp and observant, and Erin liked to think her facades were perfect, but of all people, Holtz would find and isolate the cracks.

When Holtz eased her arms out, Erin’s hands slid over the package, and she was careful not to place her hands over Holtz’s even though her traitorous body knew it could find an excuse.

“Happy birthday, Erin,” Holtz said, giving her another gentle smile before she turned with a small little bow and exited before either of them could say anything else.

Erin set the package down on her desk and looked at the wrapping paper for a second, realizing that Holtz had used pages from the Science section of the _Times_ and discovered another layer of the roboticist’s thoughtfulness. She could have easily just picked up a bag at the store and shoved whatever gift she purchased in there with some tissue paper and called it a day, but she hadn’t. The redhead breathed out a long sigh and worked on the bow first, taking it apart carefully and discarding it in the trash can next to her desk. She unwrapped the box carefully, keeping the articles intact because she hadn’t _read_ that week’s issue yet and maybe she wanted to keep it all as some souvenir, because she wasn’t already hung up on the blonde _enough_ , apparently.

The box inside was plain, secured with a few pieces of meticulously placed tape. It was neater than Erin had anticipated something from the blonde might be; she expected crazy colors and maybe a small explosion, but she got gentle, carefully folded corners and neatly placed tape instead. After the tape was open, she pulled back the lid and saw bright neon paper padding stuffed inside, to secure the items within the box. Each brightly colored squiggle covered three items: a can of pineapple juice, a bottle of Malibu, and a bag of Macadamia nuts, the exact brand that they’d found on the island and _loved_. It had been their favorite bedside snack; it wasn’t romantic, but it was good at giving them a boost of energy when they were running low.

Tucked between the pineapple juice and the rum was a small note, just a shred of paper that had been folded, and Erin opened it, gasping as new tears formed on her cheeks while she read with shaky hands that fought desperately to keep the paper still.  

It wasn’t the chance she necessarily wanted, but it was a chance at _something_.

And maybe something was better than nothing.

_I’ve adopted your old favorites as my new ones. You should let me know your new favorites before you turn 45 so I can steal those, too. If not, I’ll just have to guess. I have eight months to try. Happy birthday, EG._

_P.S. You haven’t aged a day. Stop worrying about it._

_\--Holtz_


	3. Two Steps Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, everyone! I know the first couple chapters have been... heavy. It's still going to be heavy, but there's a little bit of unexpected cuteness (though still not enough) in this chapter just to give your hearts a little bit of hope and some room to breathe. Also, we get to meet Holtz's fiancee! I know, I know, but she's NOT a monster or anything... it's not that kind of story. She's just not Erin, and Erin is... sigh. Well, y'all know. Anyway, I do hope you'll love this chapter, and I cannot thank you enough for all the kind words and praise and glorious, scrumptious feedback. You are an amazing crowd, and I'm delighted to have each and every one of you.

“The department is great,” Holtz said, a cheerful smile on her face as she gave a play-by-play of her week to the woman on the other side of a computer screen. Technology was fantastic for keeping in touch with people who lived far away, but it still wasn’t the same as being there in person. It had been five days since she’d landed in New York City, and already so much felt _different_ , and not just because she had to schedule time to talk to her fiancée now. That was different, too, because they had an apartment together back in DC; the main difference was because of work, the change of pace from being in a lab with other NASA roboticists to a university where she was at the helm of a program that was incredibly well funded with young minds hanging on her every word and searching for advice at nearly every turn. “Columbia has crazy resources. They’ll basically give me whatever I want – or, er, _need_ – and either their budget will cover it or NASA’s will because it’s all in the name of ‘the scientists of tomorrow.’ Kind of cool, actually.”

Correction, it was primarily different because the job was so, so different, but also because _Erin_ was in New York, and Holtzmann honestly never expected to see her again.

She’d finally convinced herself that their introduction to one another was a blip in each other’s pathways, that they were there to teach each other a lesson of some sort. Holtzmann had gathered hers was to garner some self-confidence and really get comfortable in her own skin instead of thinking that she would never be capable of being loved or noticed by anyone for who she was; she’d figured that out after lots of soul-searching and lots of heartbreaking moments spent listening to Professor Erin Gilbert’s very official sounding voicemail greeting again and again and _again_ until she finally realized that her former lover was never actually going to call her back. Holtz didn’t know what lesson Erin learned, what she’d taken from their week together, but she’d hoped it was something important, something that changed her life for the better, because even when it hurt to think of how much the older woman had meant to her, Holtz couldn’t deny that she’d been a positive lesson, something that had made her life better and brighter, and helped her grow into a better, stronger version of the person she’d been when the plane first landed at that resort.

“I’m so happy for you, baby!” the brunette chirped from the other side of the computer. Holtz had done her best to set up the studio in a way that was primed in both function and comfort, and she was currently relaxing on the bed, seated upright against her headboard, with her laptop across her lap. She was balancing the device on her thighs and had her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of hot chocolate to balance the crispness in the autumnal air; she didn’t like to keep her place too warm because she ran hot, but it was a bit chilly, and she wasn’t one for bundling up and putting too many layers on her body. As it was, she was content to relax in a pair of comfortably worn boxer shorts that she’d had for years and a lightweight Carnegie Mellon hoodie that she’d had since college; it had holes from various electrical burns and stains, but she didn’t mind – it was still one of her favorites, and she’d wear it until it literally fell apart in her hands. Casey’s green eyes were illuminated with joy, even though Holtz knew there was an underlying buffer of sadness just beneath what she could immediately read; they’d been together for three years, engaged for just over six months, and there had never been any real drama in their relationship. It had been one of the easiest romantic entanglements that Holtz had ever fallen into; almost as seamless as the week she’d spent with Erin.

 _Almost_.

Deep down, Holtz knew that nothing would ever touch the passion, the raw connection she’d felt during that week in Hawaii with the professor, but she couldn’t admit that to herself, and she certainly couldn’t think about it when she was on Skype with the woman she intended to marry after a very long week of limited contact. Casey was set-up in her home office, on her desktop, mimicking Holtz’s cup of cocoa with what was probably tea, if the blonde had to guess, because Casey wasn’t as fond of sugary treats as she was.

“How’s your week been, gorgeous?”

Casey sighed, biting her bottom lip before she took a sip from her own mug, one Holtz recognized when she saw the writing on the side – it had been one she’d got for the other woman as a present for their first Valentine’s Day together. It read: “You must be made of copper and tellurium, ‘cause you are CuTe.” The bottom graphic was of the elemental symbols for both copper and tellurium, obviously, because it spelled cute and _was_. Casey wasn’t as science brainy as Holtz was, but she had excelled in all areas of study before deciding her true calling was history, which eventually led to her working as a curator for two of the Smithsonian’s major museums – American History and Air and Space. They’d met at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum when Holtz’s guided tour had eventually led to Casey showing her parts of the museum all by her lonesome because she didn’t want it to be over and thought her guide – who had been covering for one of their usual guides that day, as fate or luck would have it – was super attractive. The rest, as her fiancée liked to say, was history.

“Busy. We’ve got a few new exhibits that we’re trying to corral on a deadline, as usual, but as soon as it’s all settled, things will be back to normal for a little while before I have to get back on the horn and start making acquisitions again,” Casey said, and whenever she spoke about her career, it was with the same fond passion that Holtz used when she discussed space and robots. “I miss you, though. I’m glad to be busy, but long days on my feet aren’t as pleasant when I don’t have you to spoil me rotten.”

“You _are_ pretty rotten,” Holtz commented, smirking at the brunette.

“It’s all your fault. I would have never known how good you were at foot rubs if you hadn’t insisted on spoiling me with them,” Casey sighed. “I could have lived in ignorant bliss, but no… no, you just had to go and ruin my life, didn’t you?”

“Drat! You’ve discovered my evil plan,” Holtz murmured, snapping her fingers in a sideways motion like she’d been uncovered amid some dastardly deed. Then, she sipped her cocoa and waggled her eyebrows in the brunette’s direction, which sparked an immediate bout of laughter in response.

“Good thing I know what I’m signing up for,” Casey said. “Mad scientists and evil geniuses are _totally_ my type.”

“History nerds are pretty cute, too,” Holtz said, punctuating her compliment with a signature, slow wink that caused her fiancée to blush. “Smart and sexy all rolled into one. Good with rote memorization, attention to detail… I could go on.”

“Holtz,” Casey whined softly, her slim shoulders rising and falling visibly as she reached out to touch the computer screen. “Please don’t. It’s already shitty that I have to deal without you for eight months, but if you’re gonna be so impossibly charming…”

“Impossibly charming? That’s new,” Holtz continued, winking again.

“Maybe just impossible,” Casey decided, shaking her head at how incorrigible the blonde could be, sometimes.

“You’re damn skippy,” Holtz volleyed, slurping her hot chocolate before she released a sigh of her own. “But you’re also right, distance sucks. I miss our _bed_ , and I miss _you_ in our bed and being _with_ you in our bed…” Her tone was husky toward the end, low and gravelly in that way that got them both hot and wanting in seconds.

“You’re _really_ going to have to stop that, because I have to be to work early in the morning, and so do you,” Casey said, knowing that the conversation could easily derail past placid conversation and flirtatious banter with a snap of the roboticist’s agile, dexterous fingers if she let things slide just a little too far toward sexually charged flirtation. “But maybe… maybe I can see how my vacation hours are looking, or plan a weekend trip? Not right away, but maybe in a few months, once you’re a little more settled and really start _missing_ me…”

The brunette’s voice also dropped low, a sultry promise that Holtz’s body couldn’t ignore, but at the same time, she had enough of her faculties to think about what her fiancée just offered, and usually she would have jumped all over it, but this time… this time was different.

Holtzmann wasn’t sure having Casey anywhere near Columbia was a good idea.

Especially because the veil of the way she looked at Erin was still so unstable, a science experiment on the edge of implosion, or worse. It needed further examination, time and space and room to breathe, and she didn’t want Casey thinking there was anything to worry about. Because there wasn’t.

There probably wasn’t.

Probably.

“We can talk about it in a few months, babe. Nothing wrong with considering it, though,” Holtz replied, because she didn’t want to get either of their hopes up, but she also didn’t want to squash the idea entirely, because that would be a bigger red flag than anything else. She still hadn’t told Casey about Erin being there, and she was kind of waiting for her fiancée to remember, to bring it up and ask directly so she wouldn’t be able to avoid it because they’d talked, in the past, about former flames and Holtz had mentioned – though never in explicit details, because that would be _so stupid –_ Erin’s existence and their Spring Break hook-up, but she’d made it seem like nothing.

She’d made it seem like nothing on purpose, because in reality, it was so far from _nothing_ that it would absolutely give Casey reason to worry, especially if she _knew_ that they were going to be occupying the same space, in a manner of speaking. Holtzmann prided herself on being trustworthy, and she’d never given Casey a reason to doubt her. Her loyalty was fierce – as a friend and as a lover – but there was something about the professor that she’d never been able to shake. The roboticist wanted to believe it was just unfinished business, loose ends that she’d never been able to tie up, questions that she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t be sure.

And now she had the opportunity to be sure, but it would require treading on dangerous ground.

Every time she saw Erin, every time her eyes met those other baby blues, she couldn’t help but think about how easy it would be just to reach out and touch her, kiss her, hold her _once_ more, like she’d wanted to for so many years. She’d tried to chase the initial pain, the final sting of rejection away with random, nameless women in her bed and vice-versa. She had been content to be the booty call, the friend with fantastic benefits, the ‘scratch’ to someone’s itch, because it was better than pining for a woman who would never love her back, and then she’d met Casey, and her heart _finally_ started to mend.

“Okay, honey. I’ll check the calendar at work, see if there’s any blackout dates I should be wary of – I was hopeful that we’d at least get to see each other for the holidays,” Casey mused and Holtz hated herself for not even _thinking_ about that. Christmas Break, Thanksgiving Break, New Year’s… winter break in general. She wasn’t required to stay there, of course, in New York, but a part of her wondered what might happen if she stayed behind. Maybe that would give her a reason, an excuse to reach out to Erin – or maybe Abby, which was probably the more sensible route – and see if she could glom on to their plans, or maybe do something as part of a trio instead of all by her lonesome. Of _course_ she wanted to see Casey for the holidays, though, and what kind of fiancée would she be if she didn’t?

“We’ll figure something out, I _promise_ ,” Holtz said, and the relieved smile on the brunette’s face made her heart soar, even as it waded through a sea of guilt.

“I love you, you know?”

Holtz smiled and touched her laptop’s screen, tracing soft features that she saw on the other side of an Internet connection that she’d souped up herself by messing with the router, just a little.

Matters of the heart were complicated, and she’d never anticipated this kind of complication. Not even in her wildest dreams, and she’d always been an unrealistic, amped-up dreamer.

“I love you, too.”

She said it, and Holtz knew that even though her struggles were very real, she meant it.

It would take a lot more than some temporary confusion to make it stop.

 

* * *

 

 

The next day in the lab at GISS, Holtz was working on one of her more intricate projects; it was a robot like the Mars rovers – Spirit and Opportunity – but with a different set of defenses and a few other bells and whistles that had to remain secrets until Holtz figured out whether they’d work or not. She was still getting the hang of planning lessons, and since she had never been a ‘professor’ before – her students called her Holtzmann or Doc, never Professor – she was winging it. The best way she learned was by getting her hands dirty, so she had her students building Battlebots, just like the TV show she used to binge watch for a good time when work got to be stressful and she needed to spark her creative genius.

They worked alongside her, under her watchful eye and occasionally helping hand, and Holtz had promised them not a final project, but a final _battle_ and extra credit points to the victor along with some other perks that were still to be determined when she found something suitable. The mystery behind it, especially when attached to someone as whimsical as Holtz, was enough to get all her students to bring their A game to the projects, and she was already making space for a rather large arena for this battle to take place when she saw some of the drafts that her students had come up with in their preliminary planning stages. All the work she’d seen so far was impressive, incredibly high caliber stuff that reminded her of some of the bots she’d built when she was at Carnegie Mellon.

As she turned a few screws that held a retractable camera to the top of her rover, Holtz was distracted by a sudden change in the air around her, a difference in presence that sent a shiver up her spine. The sounds of a few of her students making small greetings toward the figure that she didn’t need to _see_ to know made her look up from her project and scan the room in front of her through her work goggles, a pair of antiques she’d found on eBay from the Cold War – they were Russian government issue in decent repair when she’d bought them for a lower price than she probably should have paid, but she’d spruced them up a bit, as she had a tendency to do with most of her acquisitions. Holtz twirled the screwdriver through her fingers when she raised an eyebrow in Erin Gilbert’s direction, surprised to see the professor in her lab, in her _space_ when she’d been so skittish – she had reasons, good ones, probably – since they’d first bumped into each other.

Holtz hadn’t heard anything from her since she’d given her a belated birthday gift, and for a minute, the blonde had thought maybe it had been ill-received, something that had maybe been more hurtful than pleasant, and she loathed the thought immediately because she was trying to be kind and sentimental. Sentimentality, she knew, was a gray area for some and especially when one considered their history and how the lines could blur and already had mixed signals and sent them both into their respective corners while both brilliant minds tried to figure out how they were going to make this – _any_ of this – work for eight months.

“Good afternoon, Doctor Holtzmann,” Erin greeted her, but it was with a softer tone than the one Holtz had noticed she’d taken to using around her lately. She’d heard it the first time in the hallway, when they’d first bumped into each other again. The second time had been when Erin had thanked her for her birthday gift, and it made her sound so far away from the warmth and passion of the woman she remembered, but it wasn’t the _real_ Erin, and Holtz knew it. Erin probably knew it, too; it was an affect, a front intended to block out any harmful stimuli, or at least that was the roboticist’s line of thinking on the subject matter.

“Hey, Professor,” she chirped, flipping her goggles back and setting the wrench down. “What brings you to my neck of the woods?” Her students were rubbernecking, trying to eavesdrop, but she wasn’t sure why. Had they seen the way they looked at each other? The way every glance that they attempted to cage behind steel bars of professionalism reared out every so often to show the smoldering passion that still lingered beneath?

“I wanted to see what you’d done with the place,” Erin replied, looking around and giving a low whistle when she saw the work stations, the open space, the projects that were scattered about, and the arbitrary design of the entire space. “It’s different than I remember.”

“I spent the first two days here, day and night, basically… re-organizing. Trying to make it comfortable enough for my brain to focus and not get caught up in academic pomp and circumstance,” Holtz retorted, then raised her hands in a gesture that was meant to help back-track over some of what she’d already said. “Not sayin’ you’re stuffy or anything, Gilbert.”

“I’m a little stuffy, it’s okay,” she said, and Holtz bit her bottom lip in response.

“I’m not gonna say anything that may or may not incriminate me, but at least you’ve left the tiny bow ties at home today,” she continued. “And you traded them for _tweed_. I didn’t know people made tweed skirts anymore. Doesn’t it chafe?”

It was possibly inappropriate, a line crossed, but Holtz’s eyes were so earnest, her face contorting to concern, and Erin sighed.

“It’s fine,” Erin said softly. “Kind of comfortable, believe it or not.”

“Huh. I couldn’t do it, that’s for sure,” Holtz said, her hands making small whirling motions as she spoke, almost as if they helped funnel the thoughts in her brain out through the proper channels. “How would I _move_ , Erin? How would I _dance_?”

“Dance?” Erin laughed, crossing her arms.

“Oh, we dance in this lab, don’t we guys and gals?”

The students all responded with various forms of affirmations, and Erin shook her head in such a way that made it seem like she wasn’t surprised.

“It’s all very safe, I assure you. Just a little boot-scootin’ boogie now and again. A little razzle dazzle,” Holtz said, flickering her fingers in ‘jazz hands’ motions before she tipped an imaginary cap in Erin’s direction. “You can come dance with us any time, Professor Gilbert, but I won’t go easy on you if you aren’t appropriately dressed.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask what you’d consider ‘appropriate’,” Erin replied.

“Anything you can swing them hips in. Comfortably,” Holtz said, and she waggled her eyebrows at the redhead without even realizing she had done it until she saw the look on Erin’s face. It was heated, for a second, then it sank into the center and melted, moving her back to curt neutrality in seconds, and the roboticist felt a pang of guilt, of shame and sadness in her own heart and she wanted to apologize, apologize for _everything_ , because she wasn’t really sure how Erin felt, and therefore she could only imagine, and none of her conclusions were good. She had tried to put herself in the other woman’s shoes, and she didn’t know that she could bear breathing the same air, occupying the same space, making pleasant conversation or any of that with the woman she’d craved endlessly for so many years if she wasn’t romantically available. If Erin had been seeing someone while she was single and wanting – or worse, _engaged_ – then she’d likely self-destruct.

“I don’t really… dance.”

Holtz’s mind jumped back in time to white, sandy beaches. It traveled back to a party they’d crashed, one where the other attendees hadn’t mattered a lick because they’d had music, they’d had the throbbing musical bass to sway them, and they’d had each other. _Oh_ , they’d had each other. She remembered Erin’s uncertainty and how it had bended to her whim, to a random desire that had struck her and made her _need_ and crave making the professor come apart in her arms, where other people could see, and her lover had been so giving, so creative, so comfortable in her skin that she’d let Holtz take her apart right there in the midst of other throbbing bodies, and Holtz had swallowed her moans with a kiss just to ensure they wouldn’t get caught. The blonde’s pulse spiked and she could feel the flush rising over her pale cheeks, and their gaze caught and held, it sparked and fizzled and she could have sworn she heard a small moan escape the taller woman.

“You used to,” Holtz exhaled, and seconds later, a popping sound interrupted their moment. One of her students had exposed the wrong wire, added just a touch too much juice, and…

“It’s okay, Doc!”

Holtz jumped over her work table with a surprising amount of grace and snagged a fire extinguisher from underneath the table, holding it at the ready, but there was no fire.

“Just a small poof,” Holtz said, sighing. “I can live with that. The last thing I want is to burn this joint to the ground on my second week, eh?”

The roboticist made her way back to where Erin was still standing and paused, akimbo, as she looked the older woman over again, trying to make sense of why she’d really come to see her and falling short.

“Did you really just come here to see the space, Erin?” Now that her students were busied with making sure everything else with Graham’s robot was copacetic, they weren’t paying attention to Holtz’s conversation, so she could be a little more to the point. They both could, if they dared.

“Your note,” Erin began, and Holtz nodded, understanding her meaning instantly. “I couldn’t stop thinking about… about how we do have an opportunity here.”

“I don’t want it to stress you out,” Holtz insisted.

“No! No, Holtzmann, it’s not that…” Erin said softly, and the blonde noticed how her voice hitched, how a small part of the usually steady tone bordered on sounding meek and sad, and all she wanted was to wrap her arms around Erin and hug her, _hold_ her, but she couldn’t. Even if they were just going to be friends, that wasn’t appropriate… they were too new. “It’s not that I don’t want the opportunity, or that I’m still hung up on the past. Seeing you here, now, it’s different than all the other times I’d imagining seeing you again. It’s so different.”

Holtz perked up.

So Erin _had_ imagined seeing her again.

Her heart skipped a beat, but she cleared her throat and trudged on.

“For me, too. But different doesn’t have to be a bad thing, yunno,” she replied, a small smile edging the corners of her features.

“Can we get lunch sometime?”

Erin’s question shot from the back of her throat and it looked as if it almost surprised the professor, too, but Holtz gave her a full smile and an exuberant nod.

“Yes. I meant what I said. I want to get to know you again, Erin. I want to know who you’ve become, and I want to tell you…” Holtz could feel her words running away from her too quickly, and if she didn’t reel it in, then she’d say too much. “I want to tell you about my stuff, too.”

“Isn’t that what ‘catching up’ means, Holtz?”

Erin bit her bottom lip, and some small part of her – the 21-year-old that hadn’t quite disappeared completely, or maybe something bigger, she didn’t know – swooned at the sight and melted, just like she used to do.

“I guess so.”

“When are you free?”

“I work long hours on purpose, but my schedule is pretty open. I’m here three days a week, but I have open lab hours on Saturdays just in case these guys are overachievers like me and wanna come in and break some stuff,” she grinned. “Don’t worry, I make them fix it, too.”

“We could do brunch on Sunday,” Erin suggested.

“That sounds really fucking formal,” Holtz responded with a low chuckle.

“Don’t you think that’s probably for the best?”

It was the first time Erin had acknowledged that they were both treading on something dangerous and perfect at the same time. Holtz swallowed hard because Erin, in truth, had very little to lose by playing a tempting hand. At least, as far as Holtz knew, she was single. The way she behaved, the way she looked at her… it wasn’t with the guarded uncertainty of someone who knew they had someone at home, waiting, wanting nothing more than loyalty and upheld promises.

It wasn’t the way Holtz _should have_ looked at Erin.

“Brunch on Sunday sounds great. Do you want my phone number?”

Erin pulled out her phone from her purse and handed it to Holtz, who balanced it gently in her hands and swiftly entered her digits, taking the exchange as permissive enough.

“I can’t wait.”

They spoke in tandem when Holtz handed Erin’s phone back to her. Erin blushed and looked down at her patent leather shoes, and Holtz shoved her hands into her pockets.

Sunday brunch might have been a boring prospect for two people with their colorful history, but it was safe.

Probably safe.


	4. Brighter than Sunshine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna have to go write smut after this, you guys, because it hurt my heart. It's sweet, but it's also a fucking roller coaster ride because there's just so many feelings that they both have. All of you are so wonderful for leaving your priceless feedback, and I'm so grateful for each and every one of you. Now get your tissues/whiskey ready, because it's getting sad up in here. Longing is a real bitch.

It was _just_ brunch.

Erin looked back at her bed, at the _twelve_ outfits she’d cast aside as she kept changing her mind a thousand times over what she was going to wear.

It was brunch with Holtzmann, and that shouldn’t have meant so much to her, but it did.

The professor stood in front of her mirror in a high-waisted black pencil skirt and a simple, black lace bra, looking herself over, agonizing over every miniscule detail.

They were meeting for _brunch_ , not a date.

Erin exhaled, because that thought stung, digging barbs into her already fragile heart and taking hold, funneling a slow-acting poison through her veins until she almost considered calling up the roboticist and canceling their plans entirely.

 _No_ , she thought, _because this is a test to show we can be around each other and try to be friends. Like adults. Because we’re adults._

Erin pulled a long-sleeved, cream-colored wrap top that showed a hint of skin but not too much out of her closet and pulled it on. With simple jewelry, it would do. She finished the look with a pair of short, black heels and pulled on a coat to combat the crispness in New York’s autumnal air as she stood outside in front of her Brownstone and hailed a cab. Once inside, she rattled off the address of her destination to the driver and arrived ten minutes early. Erin valued punctuality, but what she hadn’t anticipated was seeing a curly head of blonde hair already inside, tucked into a booth, perusing a menu and cradling a cup of what appeared to be black coffee. If anything, Holtz struck her as the type of person who would either be right on time or a couple minutes late, nothing egregious or disrespectful, just a few extra minutes because she’d gotten distracted by something or maybe, since she was still getting used to New York City, because she’d gotten lost.

From this vantage point, Erin could look at her unhindered, and _really_ look without Holtz being any wiser. The roboticist’s hair was down, and Erin sighed because it was still just as long as it had been twelve years ago, and the professor could _still_ remember how soft it had been, how each curl slipped through her fingers, and how Holtz responded when Erin played with her hair. She couldn’t see the woman’s outfit entirely, but the neutral tones suggested that she might have gone with something more professional, not a crop top and paint-splattered overalls like she’d been wearing when they’d first met, or a smoking jacket underneath her lab coat like when Erin had dared venture onto the roboticist’s turf.

Holtzmann’s profile was a work of art, and Erin’s eyes took in every line, angle, and curve. The rise of high cheekbones met perfectly against the slope of her nose that was slightly upturned at the end; noses never seemed to be a particularly attractive feature, but whenever Holtz smiled and her nose scrunched, Erin couldn’t stop the butterflies that fought against her stomach like they wanted to tear her open and fly free. Pink lips pursed in thought, highlighting the crinkles in her cheeks, the smile lines and dimples, and Erin longed to trace those lips with her fingertips once more, to feel them flush and hot, desperately seeking purchase against her own. Eventually, Erin realized that she had to go inside, mostly because she was unaware of just how long she’d wasted away precious minutes just staring there, gawking like a lovesick fool, and made her way toward the door, heading inside, and noticed how Holtz’s head picked up immediately when the small chimes clinked at the door’s inward motion.

A dimpled smile took her breath away, and Erin could only manage a small wave in return, though her smile went all the way to her eyes – she knew because she could _feel_ it, that effervescent happiness that bubbled all the way to the surface before radiating outward, spreading along every pore, and that levity carried her to the booth Holtz had selected by the window.

“You’re early,” Holtz said, pulling a pocket watch out of her blazer and flipping it open to double check the time.

“You’re earlier,” Erin retorted with a grin. “And you’re… fancier than I imagined you’d be.”

Holtz laughed, her nose crinkling as she did so, and Erin bit her bottom lip.

“Laundry day. All my crop tops were in the wash,” Holtz said simply. “I know, you’re terribly disappointed. But I’ve been told I clean up nice.”

“You do,” Erin breathed out before she could even check the reverence that washed into her tone. Holtz’s jaw clenched, and she saw an internal struggle wage beneath those crystalline blue eyes that were suddenly hot on her face, on her outfit, and then fell to the table.

“What’s good to eat here? I could eat a horse,” Holtz said, her fingers tracing over the menu as she read.

Erin laughed, amused and grateful, and tilted her head to the side to read the menu with the blonde. There had only been one on the table, and instead of waiting to get her own when their server returned, she figured it gave her an excuse to stick close to the blonde for as long as she feasibly could. Internally, the professor struggled with the knowledge that she was making such piss-poor decisions when Holtz wasn’t _hers,_ couldn’t be hers, and she belonged to someone else, but a smaller, selfish part of her wanted to take whatever she could get, and Holtz hadn’t acted like the closeness bothered her.

“I remember you having quite the sweet tooth,” Erin said, not meaning for her voice to sound as sultry as it had when her words left her mouth. She cleared her throat, trying to clear the rasp and gravel from it when Holtz shot her an almost pained look sideways, her hands curling around one of the folds of the menu and bending it, expelling some nervous energy, and she watched the blonde swallow hard, then retreat into her coffee cup. “How about this?” Erin pointed to Belgian waffles – three of them, stacked high and covered with strawberry whipped cream, boysenberry syrup, and drizzled with a caramel sauce. It sounded like the kind of sugary treat that would make her head explode, but for someone like Holtz, it might just be perfect.

“With extra caramel, I think,” Holtz mused, chewing her bottom lip. “What are you having? You’re probably – wait, let me guess.” Then, she straightened her back, cleared her throat, and began scanning the menu, placing small, sidelong glances in Erin’s direction as she tried to find ‘the one.’

“I don’t have a usual or anything,” Erin said, because while she had been to their current spot several times, she wasn’t always a creature of habit. She skirted the line, and she had very particular preferences, but ever since she had embraced herself as a single woman again, she’d vowed to spend more time on trying new things so she wouldn’t get stuck in a rut.

“I never said you did,” Holtz grinned. “Now shush and let me read your mind.” The roboticist’s fingers flew to her temple on one side as she continued to read the menu, and Erin was caught in another bout of laughter that made her sides ache as Holtz hummed and made little squiggling motions with her free hand, hovering it above the pages before their server showed up and asked Erin what she wanted to drink.

“Hazelnut latte,” Erin and Holtz said simultaneously. The roboticist’s hand dropped against the menu, and when she looked at Erin, they were both caught for a moment because it had been so easy, _too_ easy, to fall in time with each other like that again, but they just… couldn’t.

“I’m already a mind reader, see?”

“But you already knew that one,” Erin said softly, fidgeting with her hands under the table, in her lap, because she her faith in herself and her inner strength was fading fast. “I’m surprised you remembered.”

“You might be surprised by what I remember,” Holtz said, her voice soft as it filtered through the space between them that was suddenly too close, and Erin scooted back, putting room between them on their shared side. The two women sat in silence like that for a few minutes before Holtzmann spoke up again. “Eggs benedict with a side of fruit.”

“I guess you are a mind reader,” Erin replied with a small smile because when she’d been searching for something Holtz might enjoy to make a recommendation, that had been the first thing she’d landed on. She never underestimated Holtz’s observational skills, however, because she knew the younger woman was incredibly sharp, and almost no detail passed her by unless she purposefully wanted it to; she was caught up in every moment, that intense gaze locked on to the world around her, and whenever Erin was in her sights, she couldn’t help but feel like she was the only person in the world, even if they were just… well, trying to be friends.

When their server returned with Erin’s coffee, they ordered and gave up their menu, removing the last item of distraction beyond their phones – which they wouldn’t dare touch, out of respect – and left them in a few moments of charged silence before Holtz broke the ice.

“Do you do this kind of thing a lot? Sunday brunch?”

“I usually stay in on Sundays. Sometimes I visit the markets, get lunch and read the Sunday _Times_ , grade papers back at my place…” Erin said, realizing just how _old_ her answer made her sound. Holtz smirked, the dimple popping in her cheek as she leaned forward on her hands and gazed at the professor, batting her lashes in a comical way, and the professor was beyond thankful that she hadn’t done it in a seductive way, or she’d be toast.

“Uh-huh,” Holtz drawled. “When did Abby let you beat her to 75, Gilbert? I thought you two were gonna grow old _together_.”

“I’m _not_ old, I’m… refined,” Erin said, clearing her throat and tilting her head upward, which only caused another, raucous laugh to escape the blonde. Erin frowned and gave Holtz a playful shove, but her hands lingered on solidity and hard muscle, fingers wrapped around slim biceps and she noticed Holtz leaning into the touch, flexing under her hands and then – and only then – Erin jerked away like she’d been burned.

“Maybe Columbia’s stodgy fun killing-ness has just rubbed off on you,” Holtz commented, her sentiment blasé and Erin scoffed.

“Practicality isn’t a bad thing, Holtzmann, and when you get to be my age, you start thinking about… about what you’re going to do with the rest of your life, because you’re nearly halfway there, and it’s…” Erin stammered, finding that she was intrigued and alight by this new side of the blonde that she’d never experienced before; it was intense, a deep digging into her soul as Holtz extracted pieces and goaded her. “And what do you think should rub off on me instead, you?”

Oh, she’d _definitely_ said that wrong.

Holtz coughed, her eyes wide as she reached for her coffee and drained it in a few gulps. It was hot, and Erin watched her wince as she pressed the mug down and made watery eyes at their server when she arrived with more coffee, giving Holtz a refill.

“Hot,” Holtz breathed, exhaling heavily into the space in front of her, almost like she was trying to breathe fire, but Erin wondered if she was referring to the fact that she’d just guzzled her coffee or something else. The roboticist didn’t meet her eyes, at least not for a minute, when she did, Erin could see the storms within them, and it caused something in her to snap.

Something feral and dangerous.

Something that ate away under the surface, because Holtzmann was a big girl, and she could make her own decisions. Erin didn’t need to make apologies for her behavior, for her attraction to the blonde, nor did she need to reconcile their past because it was in the past. Holtz had chosen to give her a birthday present and meet her for lunch of her own volition, knowing that she had a fiancée.

Erin sucked in a breath and tilted her head in Holtz’s direction, renewed by the fact that the blonde was responsible and conscious about being here, alone, with her. Erin wasn’t a homewrecker, and she’d _never_ cross a line that Holtz didn’t want, but she wasn’t going to hold herself back from an opportunity to get to know someone she’d loved, someone she still cared about deeply, because she was worried something _might_ happen.

Chances are, it never would.

She’d seen that smile on Holtz’s face after she’d taken the phone call back at Columbia.

That dazed, adoring grin had covered her face once or twice when they’d been wrapped up in each other on the island.

Erin knew what that smile meant.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, great,” Holtz said, intertwining her own fingers as she looked prepared to ask Erin a question. “So… how’ve you been the last twelve years?”

Erin wanted to laugh and cry all at once because she had been through a lot, but she’d gotten through it all, and she had thought she was strong enough to handle whatever was next until Holtzmann had taken that job at Columbia. She’d thought she’d won her war with the universe, but it appeared they’d only been at a truce for a fortnight or two and nothing more.

“Great… _great_ and… _not_ great, sometimes,” Erin said, because there was no point in pulling punches. “My career and Abby have been the real pillars of stability. I bought a house,” Erin said, her mind jumping around her own timeline and trying to dig out the important facts. “A Brownstone. The mortgage is ridiculous, but it was a gift to myself after I got my tenure.”

Holtz nodded, but made a motion for Erin to continue.

“I got married,” Erin spat out, watching a blonde eyebrow shoot up into the roboticist’s hairline immediately.

“You’re not… still married,” Holtz said, treading softly and Erin watched her scan over her hands as if she was searching for a ring.

“No. Divorced. It’s been a few years since, now… we weren’t married terribly long, only two years,” she explained. “Some things just don’t work out.”

“Huh,” Holtzmann replied, but there was something soft and wondrous in her tone, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, or… darker still, that she didn’t _want_ to hear it. Erin caught a glassy exterior to her next smile, one that suggested the roboticist might have been faking it, and wasn’t that interesting? “As long as you’re happy now, EG. You deserve that.”

“I am happy,” Erin said, but she knew she could be happier as the words trailed out and settled between them. She knew how she could be happier, too, but that seemed impossible. “How did you meet your fiancée? Sorry, what was her name?”

“Casey,” Holtz replied. “She’s a curator at the Air and Space Museum and the American History Museum, part of the Smithsonian team. I went there and she… showed me around. Rest is history.” The roboticist made a drumming motion with her arms and a rim shot sound, but Erin wondered how comfortable she was, talking about her fiancée, when she stopped maintaining eye contact.

“How long have you two been together?”

She asked out of politeness; she didn’t really want to know.

“Three years.”

 _Three years_.

The weight of it settled into her bones because there had been – in years long since passed – a moment when they were both still single. A few, even, when she could have tried to reach out. Finding a Dr. Jillian Holtzmann with the knowledge that she could very well be at NASA, but certainly graduated from Carnegie Mellon would have been simple enough; she could have taken the time to reinstate herself in the younger woman’s life, after her divorce, when she’d thought about doing _exactly_ that, but it’d felt so intrusive, so unexpected that her fear of rejection outweighed what she desperately wanted with every other, irrational part of her body.

“I’m happy you found someone,” Erin said, but in truth, Holtz had never really _lost_ someone. Erin knew it every time she went on a date with someone new, because in the back of her subconscious mind there was a blonde shadow, a ghost with brilliant dimples and a sharper mind, and it wasn’t ever a competition. It was just stark reality that coupled unpleasantly with the professor’s desire not to be alone. And now, she was alone. Now, she had tried to embrace being alone, tried to find power in being single, and then Holtz found her again.

“You told me to wait until I found someone perfect,” Holtzmann replied.

Their food arrived shortly after, and it gave them a reason to suspend conversation beyond more placid topics – icebreakers like how Patty was married and had a _daughter_ now, among other things – and gave their hearts time to steel. Erin’s heart, especially, because she had never expected the promises she’d wanted Holtz to keep to be used against her.

It was selfish to think she might wait.

It was heartbreaking to know that she probably had, that she’d likely met Casey when she’d given up.

“This is really delicious,” Erin said, gesturing toward her meal with her fork, and Holtz smiled.

“Something about it just screamed Erin Gilbert.”

The rest of brunch went by with laughter and lighter spirits. Holtz tried to balance a spoon on her nose, asked for two cups of extra whipped cream, and carried on in a way that was so vibrant that Erin felt like she was staring at the sun.

She wasn’t worthy of someone like Holtzmann.

She didn’t have the proper tools to love something so bright.

And maybe this Casey, whoever she was, did.


	5. The Surface of a Perforated Sphere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys might wanna drink your way through this chapter. Tears were shed while I was writing it. I wanted to drink my way through this chapter. To those of you with hearts I've promised to protect, please know it will get better for Holtzbert eventually, but not just yet. There's also a little bit of smut at the end, so if you don't wanna read sexy stuff between someone that isn't Erin/Holtzy, you can skip the last section. But it's not super graphic, and it really does advance the story, so I hope you'll stick with it anyway. Everything happens for a reason, even if it sucks for a minute - I firmly believe that. So, without further ado, here's some more feels. I love you guys, really I do. I'm hurting with you.

Eventually, life fell into a routine. Holtzmann had never been in love with routine; she much preferred the spontaneity of living, instead, the unfamiliar to the mundane, the sparks that unexpected circumstances could create.

Unlike some people who relished order and simplicity, Holtz grew bright and strong when her roots sunk into chaos.

But chaos had its downside.

And, just like chaos, when her world went into a tailspin, the roboticist got… dark, insecure of her umbilical cord to the world. Instead of being sunny and rambunctious, she traded places and moved toward being withdrawn and reclusive until the blonde became a whirlwind of creativity and mania, blueprints and prolific wonder. Holtzmann was at her best when she lived life on the edge, her boldest and brightest when she was seconds from spinning out of control, and so she required a tether.

Patty had been her tether in DC, but she’d held the mantle steady, on the shoulders of Atlas, since Holtz was a bright-eyed and bushy tailed youth.

Her best friend still held the cord as tightly as she could, reaching out to the blonde through a variety of technological advances that made it possible for Holtz to ease away from the sting of static disconnect, and while they both knew that one day, the torch would need to be passed, it hadn’t yet. Patty still held it firm, but over the years, she’d started to groom Casey – because she actually _liked_ Holtzmann’s fiancée – for the privilege of caring for such a special, unique someone.

Once, Holtzmann remembered sitting in her living room, staring at a phone that was painfully blank except for the many, many messages she’d sent to one Erin Gilbert over the course of months that felt like the expanse of eternity, and Patty had told her that she had thought she’d be able to trust the professor with Holtzmann’s heart.

Once, and never again.

Because she’d seen the hurt in the blonde’s eyes when she waited for the messages that never came.

She’d heard the soft cries at night when Holtz clutched a pillow against the curve of her body and tried to dream of soft sand and waves that lapped slowly into a private cove that felt like a dream, even though it was lost to the cruel winds of time, nothing but a memory of what could have been.

And then Patty had eased the phone into her hands, deleted the messages, and held Holtzmann for hours while she mourned the ‘could haves’ and tried to figure out where to turn next while she was adrift at sea.

Holtzmann knew how Patty was skeptical about her spending time with Erin, but she tried to take her friend’s concerns with a grain of salt because she was _different_ now. They both were. Years had aged them and carved wisdom and different kinds of traction in their hearts, turning lumps of mutable clay into solid figurines that were mostly settled and nearly complete.

Casey, surprisingly enough, was enthusiastic about her getting a chance to get to know someone from her past all over again, not because she was thrilled at the prospect of the blonde getting close to an ex-lover, but because _Holtz_ seemed happy about it.

And Casey was happiest when she was happy, even if her enthusiasm was naïve.

Holtzmann felt the twinge of guilt whenever her gaze lingered at Erin for just a little too long when her glasses slid down the bridge of her nose and it crinkled while she graded papers.

Sometimes, when Erin laughed at her jokes, Holtz felt warm and tingly all over, and so she spent an extra hour on Skype with her fiancée as soon as she could just so Casey could attempt to produce the same, immediate reaction throughout her body. The brunette always thought she was hysterical and told her so, responded with such vivid ripostes that the blonde, who used to feel spoiled, now felt a weight in her conscience because she didn’t _deserve_ that anymore. She didn’t deserve them when she was making comparisons in her head and betraying the vows she had desperately wanted to make to someone who was light and good and _solid_.

Someone who would never, ever break her heart.

 

* * *

 

 

Before Holtzmann knew it, it was nearing Christmas break. She loved on all her lab rats – her affectionate moniker for her ‘students’ because she still felt weird about being their _teacher_ – doling out various fist bumps and other forms of maternal affection and sent them off to their various homes for the holidays. The school was starting to empty, retaining that dull sheen of an empty building that would be restored to its academic glory when the holidays were over. There was snow on the ground, just a light dusting, though the forecast predicted more within the next week, and Holtz felt a warmth settle in her bones even though she planned to stay in New York instead of flying home to DC.

So much could change in so little time, and it was wondrous to her just how fragile the fabric of time and space really was when she thought about it.

Patty hadn’t been happy about the news, but she’d understood that Holtz had her projects and Holtz had her _work_ and even though their friendship was rock solid and steady, ability to withstand everything, Holtzmann’s work always came before anything else because it was her life’s greatest passion, her gift to the world, and she was determined to leave behind a legacy. So they made promises to Skype on Christmas Eve so she could watch her ‘lil cakelet’ open presents underneath the tree and Patty promised to send some of the Christmas baked goods her way, even if it was expensive to ship that stuff. Holtz had a sweet tooth that couldn’t be denied, and it was Patty’s way of bringing some of the holiday cheer that the roboticist had known for years, securing a spot at her table since her college days, to New York and making her friend feel like she wasn’t so far away.

And where there was warmth, there was also a malingering onus that followed Holtz around like a shroud because she wasn’t precisely going to be locked in her lab for the duration of the holiday.

Abby and Erin had convinced her to join their dynamic duo and have a spot at their table, and Holtz had brightly accepted without giving a second thought to Casey, to her life in DC, to the people she missed terribly and hadn’t seen in _months_ because she wanted to see Erin Gilbert’s cheeks flush when she’d had too much mulled wine and the look on her face when she saw the mechanical bow tie she’d created – mostly as a gag gift – and rigged to spring out of a brightly colored box when Erin opened it; it would whiz around the professor’s living room like a helicopter, and the look would be _priceless,_ Holtzmann knew, but soothed better when she opened the scrapbooking kit she’d purchased to get the redhead started on something she’d been saying for the longest time she’d wanted to pick up as a hobby.

Holtz also bought her a camera, so they could start making memories right away, filling the empty book with pages of the three of them, drunk and disorderly, around Erin’s Charlie Brown Christmas tree because she didn’t want the muss and fuss of a huge one, a real one that would leave pine needles _everywhere_.

As she exited her lab, she whistled a traditional carol as she strolled through the empty hallways looking jovial like a steampunk Santa Claus in her shiny red blazer that was decked with antique buttons and pins, retrofitted goggles that she’d fixed herself with gears and tinsel, and the traditional hat sideways over her usual up-do. Holtz pulled her phone out of her pocket and swiped across the screen, smiling when she saw the text from Erin.

_Outside. Brought your favorite. It’s so cold, hurry!_

They’d arranged to meet after she finished up at the lab and head over to Erin’s for her and Abby’s traditional viewing of _It’s a Wonderful Life_ and order Chinese food. It was a bit early, still three days before Christmas, but they planned to extend the festivities since they had an extra person in their midst.

_But did you remember the extra whipped cream? It’s very important, Gilbert._

_Extra whipped cream, extra sprinkles, extra chocolate, extra calories – how do you stay so small?_

She had told Erin that she didn’t mind walking to her brownstone – it was only ten blocks away – but the professor had insisted that they walk together because the snow was so pretty and Holtz hadn’t ever experienced snow in New York city before.

_Magic. I can’t tell you all my secrets._

Holtzmann made it out the double front doors and headed down the stairwell, immediately catching Erin, who had two paper cups in gloved hands. She had a neutral look on her face, one that was clearly concealing a whirlwind of emotions – because Holtz _knew_ these things about her now, had studied them and placed them in a sideways categorization to compare what used to be, what was now, and what still overlapped. The blonde tilted her head sideways and forced herself to look at the full picture, and when she did, she saw the professor talking to a tall brunette who was bundled in a light gray, wool coat. Her long, wavy hair spilled down the sides and back, and a maroon knit cap was pulled down just enough to shield her ears from the cold.

Erin’s eyes met Holtz’s and locked.

And suddenly, Holtz could see the _sadness_ flash in those crystalline blues before the woman turned around and rushed toward her.

“Baby!”

Holtzmann nearly fell down the steps, which were fortunately covered in rock salt to add traction against the ice and slick.

“Casey, oh my God, what are you _doing_ here?” Holtz asked, her brow furrowed, quizzical, as her face broke out into a smile. She couldn’t help how her heart skipped a beat whenever her fiancée smiled at her because every time she did, it made the blonde feel like she was the only woman who had ever existed on the planet, like Casey’s vision faded until there was nothing else but her and the two of them. It was so focused in that verdant gaze, sharp green eyes like broken glass reflecting in shades of love and longing, and suddenly she was wrapping arms around the familiar figure, breathing in Casey’s scent, like _home_ and soft, subtle hints of cloves and other warm, spicy scents that the curator favored.

“It’s Christmas, I wanted to surprise you,” she said softly, wrapping her arms around Holtz’s waist and pressing her own, gloved hands against the blonde’s cheeks that had already reddened from the chill in the air. “It was so hard to pretend like I was going to miss you since I bought my tickets _weeks_ ago, and I think Patty’s kind of pissed that I’m not gonna be there for dinner, too, but it’s worth it.”

Holtz’s jaw dropped and she stammered, swaying nervously on the spot, biting her bottom lip because Erin was _watching_ and Casey was physically there, in her arms, after so long apart and her heart soared and sank at the same time. Seconds later, the brunette leaned in and captured her lips in a slow, passionate kiss that simmered and Holtz responded in kind, tugging on her hips and pulling her close, the natural response for their immediate reactions to each other because _fuck_ it had been a long time and _fuck_ she really did miss her fiancée.

“This is an awesome surprise,” Holtz said, breathless when she pulled away, and Casey reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together as they made their way toward Erin, together.

The guilt pulverized her ribcage, and Holtz tried to look contrite when she met the professor’s gaze, uneasy and wrecked, because they’d had plans – good plans – and her presents were already under the tree at Erin’s and there’d be a bitterness to them, now.

“So this is the famous Erin Gilbert, huh? She told me you were in there, working away,” Casey said, giving the redhead a warm smile that held no trace of bitterness or jealousy, then cast her eyes down toward the cups in Erin’s hand and looked back at Holtzmann. “Fuck, did you two have plans? Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I just thought showing up here was a safe bet because I figured you wouldn’t be back at your place. You’re _always_ working.”

“She really is,” Erin chimed in, almost like she knew Holtzmann was struggling, drowning in a thousand ways to respond, none of them what she wanted to say, none of them good. “And I actually came to check on her, bring her some cocoa from this spot nearby because she’s so forgetful about taking care of herself when she gets in that work mode. You know how she gets.”

When Erin lied for her, when Erin lied _at all,_ Holtz wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole, because Casey probably wouldn’t have been mad if they’d had plans. It wasn’t like she’d anticipated her coming, after all, but Erin – beautiful, perfect Erin – was coming to her rescue or maybe trying to cover her own ass and simultaneously save Holtz’s relationship because they’d been tap dancing on a high wire for months, and it was so precarious that the blonde was dizzy.

“That’s really nice of you,” Casey breathed. “I’m so glad she’s got people looking after her.”

Holtz hated that they were talking about her while she was standing right there.

She hated how Erin was using that fucking stupid fake smile and Casey was so oblivious to everything, and she was grateful at the same time.

She was torn to pieces and squeezed Casey’s hand harder, a reflexive twitch of her muscles, and her fiancée immediately looked over at her, a question in her eyes.

“Erin and Abby invited me to join them for Christmas,” Holtzmann replied suddenly.

Casey smiled and chuckled.

“Okay, babe. I’m glad to hear you had _some_ plans to do something,” she continued. “I’d be more worried if you didn’t.”

“It’s nothing formal,” Erin said, and her tone suggested a different tone to the evening than it had when she’d first made the invitation to Holtzmann when they had been alone, eating sandwiches in her lab because they’d started taking lunch breaks _together_. Then, it had been made out to seem like it was some sacred event that she had done with Abby since college and now, she wanted to open it up to Holtz. Now, Holtzmann wondered which version was the truth. “We order Chinese and watch _It’s a Wonderful Life_. You’re welcome to join us, if you like, unless you two are eager to get away.” Erin chuckled, but it felt like sandpaper on the blonde’s skin.

“I don’t wanna intrude,” Holtz said, because now she felt like a stranger.

“It’s up to you, Holtz, whatever you want to do. I’m here for the week, so we’ve got _plenty_ of time,” Casey said, leaning a little closer to her. Erin offered the cup of cocoa to Holtzmann with a soft smile, and the almost imperceptible nod that the redhead gave her was missed by Casey but felt like a gunshot wound to the blonde’s stomach. She could almost feel herself bleeding out onto the pavement as her hand wrapped around the cup.

“You know I love Chinese food,” she replied with a gentle smile.

“Abby was going to come over around eight, if that’s not too late for you two?”

Holtz’s heart sank, because it was barely past three, which meant Erin had probably planned something for them – something special – to fill the gap, and now she’d never know what it was.

“Not too late for me,” Casey said. “I slept on the plane, wanted to make sure I got plenty of rest.”

When the brunette’s hip bumped hers, Holtz caught the double entendre and saw the look on Erin’s face when she did, too.

It was awful, feeling like her heart was being tugged in two directions at the same time.

On one hand, she was delighted to see her fiancée and knew she’d be able to get lost in her once they were alone, because catching up had been something she’d dreamed about, something she’d longed for, and she and Erin were just friends, anyway.

They had to be just friends, because Holtz was engaged, and she was in love with someone else.

It didn’t matter that she knew she could love Erin, or that a part of her still did and likely always would.

None of that mattered anymore.

“I guess we’ll see you at eight, Gilbert. Need us to bring anything?”

“No, I think we’ve got it all covered,” Erin said, then extended a hand to Casey. “It’s really great to finally meet you.”

“Likewise,” Casey said, shaking the professor’s hand before Erin waved and headed toward the left, toward home, while Holtz’s feet stayed positioned to head right. “So… cab? Show me how you New Yorkers do it so we can get back to your place faster.”

The hot breath on her neck when Casey leaned in and nibbled her earlobe made Holtz burn, but her heart throbbed when she watched Erin walk away.

 

* * *

 

 

Erin didn’t go home.

It had been years since she started drinking – especially multiple drinks – before happy hours hit at five o’clock, but here she was, in the first bar she could find more than an hour before.

There were two empty wine glasses in front of her because her heart wouldn’t allow her to order her usual, especially when she’d just picked it up again, renewed by the present Holtzmann had gotten her for her birthday and by Abby’s insistence that she could still be herself even though she mourned the loss of the woman she’d been back in Hawaii.

Even though she wished she could turn back the clock and do it all over again.

Halfway through the third glass of merlot her eyes met the gaze of a pretty blonde from across the room.

Her hair was honey blonde where Holtz’s was straw, but it didn’t matter.

Her eyes were deeper, a richer sapphire compared to the kaleidoscopic wonder that was Holtzmann’s eternally swirling, changing blues, but she didn’t care.

Erin could pretend to see a dimple in that smile, hear the husk of a gritty voice as it cracked yet another pun about hydraulics even though she’d worn them all out.

Erin could _pretend_.

She walked over, brave and heady in her buzz, confident with a sway to her hips as she sat next to the blonde and extended a hand.

Seconds after the woman gave her name, Erin forgot it.

She bought her a drink, then two, and they flirted.

The blonde’s fingers ran up Erin’s forearm, and Erin remembered the way Holtz’s eyes smoldered under the moonlight.

Their lips met, and she could taste the salt in the air and feel the tropical beat of islands pulse underneath her.

She could smell sunscreen and coconut oil on the girl’s wintery pale skin, taste the sunlight on her skin, and Erin grabbed her hand after they settled her tab, leading them back toward the women’s room and locking the door behind them as she slammed the girl’s body against the wall first, pawing at her clothes before she positioned her body on the sink and dropped to her knees.

When the blonde’s arousal hit her lips, all she could taste was the memory of Holtzmann.

When the woman came, a fistful of auburn hair between her slim fingers, Erin throbbed and ached for dexterity that nobody else would be able to provide filling her and stretching her, taking and soothing the emptiness away, chasing the sorrow of what felt like a thousand years away until every crack in her soul was mended.

They switched positions, and Erin let the blonde fuck her once they nearly fell inside the stall, hot and dirty with two fingers deep inside her, pushing Erin up against the wall. 

It was fast, rougher than she’d anticipated, but the sting of being full again was _almost_ enough to block out the pain of watching the woman she loved be in love with someone else.

Erin came with a long cry and she knew, as soon as she saw the look on the blonde’s face, that she’d called out the wrong name.

The blonde chuckled, kissed her neck, then her lips, and withdrew her fingers when Erin stopped shuddering around them.

“Sorry,” Erin apologized, suddenly bashful, and looked at the floor.

“Nah, it’s cool,” the blonde replied, shrugging her shoulders and wiping her hand with some toilet paper that she threw in the toilet and flushed before she made her way to the sink to wash up. “Merry Christmas.”

Erin left the bathroom in a rush, bought herself a shot of whiskey at the bar and downed it before the blonde emerged, then hailed a cab home.

Her throat still burned when she gave her address to the driver, but nothing would take the taste of Holtzmann away.

The thought hit her dead center in her broken chest, and Erin cried the whole way home.


	6. Endless Rain Inside a Paper Cup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy, you remember when I said y'all might want whiskey or alcohol of some kind for the last chapter? You're gonna really, really need it for this one. No joke. I hurt so much while I was writing this chapter, but we're almost to the eye of this little rainstorm, so if you've made it this far, please stay tuned. As much as it hurts, I promise it's gonna get better. 
> 
> Seriously, don't hate me. 
> 
> I'm so sorry for this. My poor Holtzbert.

Casey’s visit had extended past New Year’s Eve, longer than the week she’d originally planned, and Holtzmann was a bag of mixed emotions.

On one hand, she understood the rationalization of wanting to celebrate the dawning of a New Year – the year they were supposed to marry – together, just like they’d done for years before, but a part of Holtzmann had been… curious, but cautiously so, about how her life might have looked different if Casey hadn’t changed her plans.

Erin and Abby had met them for drinks on New Year’s Eve at their favorite bar and Holtzmann had watched Erin suck down Malibu and pineapples out of the corner of her eye while Abby tried to get to know Casey and she tried her best to keep up with the conversation. Fortunately, the roboticist knew by the lack of questioning from either Abby or Casey that she’d managed to hold up her end of the chatter, and Erin had been… mostly silent, chiming in here and there, being cordial and friendly like she’d learned how to do from a young age – or so Holtz suspected – and when they’d finally left the bar, Holtz had smiled and tried to adopt the same, pretend happy visage when Casey went on and on about how _wonderful_ her friends were, how much she _liked_ Erin when she’d expected to be a little jealous, at first, because of their “history.”

If only she knew how Holtz had barely been able to tear her eyes away from Erin when the professor had excused herself from their booth to go dance with a handsome stranger who had politely approached them to ask her if she was free.

If only she knew how the roboticist ached with jealousy, clawing at her own arms as best as she could manage, under the table when Erin laughed at the stranger’s jokes, how she seemed to arch into his touch, and how the blonde didn’t know whether it was the booze talking or if she was genuinely _interested_.

Holtz didn’t catch the guy’s name but Erin hadn’t dropped it, either when they’d made their way back over to the booth after dancing together for quite a long time to say that they were heading to the bar, together. Abby tossed Erin a knowing smile, one of encouragement, and Holtzmann wanted to strangle her.

She wanted to put a stop to it because she saw the way the guy looked at Erin, and it wasn’t with that lecherous smile she’d seen before when they’d hung out, casually, and Erin politely turned down prospective suitors. He looked at her like he wanted to know her inside and out, like she’d chased every thought in his mind away when their eyes first met, and Holtz remembered so vividly when she’d had the same look on her face when they’d first met in paradise.

Erin deserved someone who would look at her like that.

Even though Holtzmann knew she wasn’t right to cast her eyes on the professor in a way that suggested she still felt the same way she had twelve years earlier, she couldn’t force her body or eyes to cool the need in her veins and so she broke a thousand promises to herself. Holtz did it all the time, but not when Casey was watching.

Holtzmann had watched Erin even when her heart could no longer stand it, even when it beat so hard and so loud she could feel the pressure in her chest building, pushing it to break. Holtz felt the sorrow all the way down to her fingertips when Erin’s hand rested on the man’s forearm, when she leaned a little closer to whisper in his ear, when their eyes glanced toward the door, and her heart _shattered_ when she watched them leave together.

Casey had been oblivious for the rest of the night, which strengthened Holtzmann’s faith in her own abilities to play pretend and shove down viciously toxic emotions that she could feel poisoning her from the inside out as she waded through the night.

They didn’t stay in the bar until midnight; they left about a half-hour after Erin did and Holtz crafted a perfectly logical ‘excuse’ that she wanted time for a private celebration with her fiancée.

Abby’s smile had been encouraging then, too, and Casey had blushed at Holtz’s forwardness, even though it was settled by jealousy in her veins.

Holtz took out her anger with herself on Casey’s body, pushing the brunette to her limits until she could barely stand.

Holtzmann tried to soothe the anguish in her heart by murmuring praises and sweet nothings into Casey’s hair, against her neck, inside of her as they moved together seamlessly, just like they’d always done.

They made love for hours, their blissed-out bodies finding ways to say goodbye and endure the distance that would be shoved between them once more. Casey’s green eyes shimmered with promises, with unwavering loyalty, and Holtz stroked her cheek, returning each sentiment in kind with murmured words against damp skin and bruises that had been blooming and darkening for days.

Holtzmann wished she could have been more present in these moments because it was unfair not to be, but she wasn’t saying goodbye to the memory of Casey – she was trying desperately to replace the last pieces of Erin Gilbert and expel them from her soul.

“I’m so glad you have people here to make sure you’re okay,” Casey whispered once their sweaty bodies were covered by nothing more than a bedsheet and they snuggled close in the middle of Holtz’s Queen bed.

“Yeah, they’re good people,” Holtz said, staring up at the ceiling, and she could feel Casey’s hands stroking gently up and down the muscles in her stomach, across hip bones and other spots of soft skin, wherever she could reach. She could feel the touch, but the roboticist felt dissociated, outside of her own body with her face pressed against the cold glass, an outsider looking in on the life she had instead of the one she wanted.

“Abby’s really funny and Erin… I can see why you liked her,” Casey continued, and even though she was just being sweet and thoughtful, Holtzmann wished she would just _stop_. Silence wedged between them and Casey propped her chin up on Holtz’s shoulder, trying her best to look the blonde in the eyes. “Holtz, is everything okay?”

Holtz forced herself to make eye contact and cracked her conscience with a smile.

“Yeah, Casey, I just… I don’t like goodbyes, you know that.”

The brunette nodded and kissed the space underneath Holtz’s collar bone.

“It’s not forever,” she promised. “And when you come back to DC, we can throw ourselves into wedding stuff and can you believe it’s _nine_ months away?”

“Nine months, wow,” Holtz replied, because that was her reality, sinking in. “Time sure does fly, doesn’t it?”

“Not fast enough,” Casey said, leaning up to capture Holtzmann’s lips in a slow, sweet kiss. “I can’t wait to be your wife.”

 

* * *

 

 

Six weeks after Casey left, Holtzmann was finally starting to feel like her old self again. She’d distanced herself from Erin for a while, turning down the occasional text message offer for lunch or a dinner invite with her and Abby. Each and every time, the roboticist put the blame on work, and she knew she should have been more grateful for their friendship, for Erin’s attempts to ease the awkwardness between them because they hadn’t spoken about New Year’s Eve, about Casey, about _any_ of it. It seemed, for the moment, the two women were caught in a stalemate where neither of them could budge because they couldn’t even begin to know how.

Erin couldn’t tell Holtzmann that she was desperately trying anything in her power to eliminate the last traces of her attraction – which was a gross understatement, a raw placeholder for her real feelings – at any cost.

Holtzmann couldn’t tell Erin that half of the time she was tangled up with her fiancée, she was wishing she was making love to someone else.

So they took the words they couldn’t say and exchanged it with shop talk, with discussions about their lesson plans and their projects, research, their students, anything that seemed innocent enough to fill a space because even though it was riotously painful, they couldn’t stay away from each other.

It took a week before Holtz finally got the courage to talk to Erin.

She’d agonized, drawn diagrams, almost burned down the GISS lab once when she’d ‘misplaced’ some highly volatile materials near a soldering iron.

She’d written at least a hundred text messages with various preludes on the standard ‘we need to talk’ and erased them all.

Finally, Holtzmann decided that the only way she’d ever get closure was by talking about her feelings, and even though she’d always been terrified about having them for someone who likely had never felt the same way, she wasn’t doing herself any favors by keeping secrets to herself and wondering ‘what if’ when she could actually _know_ ‘what if’ by giving Erin the chance to respond to the ghosts of emotion that had haunted the blonde for years.

These conversations were always best had on full stomachs, or so the roboticist liked to think, so she grabbed food from a nearby deli where she had Erin’s order memorized and brought it to the professor’s office during the older woman’s lunch hour.

She knocked twice against the wooden frame when she saw Erin alone inside with her neck craned over paperwork, glasses on her face and her lips pursed in deep thought.

_God, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, even when she gets that stress vein in her forehead…_

“You’re gonna get neck cramps if you keep sitting that way,” she murmured in a soft voice from the doorway. The tone sounded flirtatious, almost like a pick-up line, but Erin looked up at her with a kind smile and Holtz _knew_ she was understood in the proper context, in the friendly way that housed concern for someone’s well-being.

Maybe she’d meant it as a little flirtatious, despite herself, despite every modicum of her logic and reason telling her to just _stop_ already. But she was here to put it to bed, to rip off the band-aid and be an adult about this, once and for all.

“Holtzmann, hey,” Erin said, pushing her glasses off and setting them aside as she waved for the blonde to come in. “This isn’t your lunch hour.”

“No, but it’s yours, and I needed a break,” the roboticist said, holding up the white paper bag that held two roast beef sandwiches – hers with extra cheese and mayo, Erin’s with extra veggies – and made her way inside Erin’s office. “I come in peace.”

“Sit down,” Erin chuckled, and Holtz’s free hand rested on the doorknob, a silent question as to whether the professor wanted it to stay open. “You can shut the door, it’s fine.” Holtzmann nodded and shut the door behind her, then made her way to the couch in the corner, smiling when Erin left her desk and her paperwork to join her. It felt more intimate, that way, and not like she was some student being lectured after-hours by sitting across from the professor’s desk.

“Roast beef and swiss, extra veggies, easy sauce,” Holtz said, handing Erin her sandwich that was the size of a small infant – the physicist always saved half for later, but Holtz could devour hers in one go.

“Gotta watch my figure,” Erin retorted when she caught the grimace on Holtzmann’s face at the thought of _extra_ veggies when the only ‘good’ extras in the blonde’s mind were cheese, condiments, or sugary substances.

“Why? You’re perfect,” Holtz breathed, then bit the inside of her cheek and threw her eyes toward the floor before she rummaged through her bag for her own sandwich. “I mean…”

“Thank you,” Erin said softly, patting Holtz’s knee. The touch didn’t linger, but the roboticist nodded and swallowed as she felt the simple touch like a gunshot.

“So, there’s something I actually wanted to, um, to _talk_ about,” Holtz said, fidgeting before she shoved a huge bite of sandwich into her mouth, chewed, and waited for the words to funnel through her brain because this was _not_ gonna be easy.

“Okay,” Erin replied, looking at the roboticist for a moment before she looked back down at her lap, then her food, and took a dainty bite. “Take your time, if you need.”

“This is so effing good,” Holtz said, murmuring around the sandwich and realizing that it was a crutch. She cleared her throat and turned her body toward the professor, who placed her hands in her lap when she saw the blonde looking at her earnestly. “We haven’t talked, really, since Casey was here, and I know there’s probably a lot of reasons for that, but there’s also—“

“Holtzmann, it’s okay, I know,” Erin said.

“Say ‘gain, wha?”

That was _so_ not the reaction she’d anticipated. Holtz hadn’t planned for it, hadn’t gone through this outcome, and so she waited for the professor to elaborate while she did her best impression of a deer in headlights instead.

“You don’t have to apologize for her being here, for being happy, for being… engaged,” Erin said. “The last thing I want is for you to feel guilty because of me or because of _us_ , what used to be _us_.”

Erin took a breath, but Holtzmann suspected there was more she wanted to say, so she didn’t jump in to stop her, didn’t attempt to derail whatever the redhead seemed to need to get off her own chest, even though she was screaming inside.

“I won’t lie to you, it, um… it hurt, a lot, seeing you together at first,” Erin said, sucking in a slow breath as she fiddled with the hem of her skirt before smoothing it back down over her thighs. “It hurt because I wasn’t… I wasn’t over you, and that was wrong. It was wrong of me to think I had any sort of claim over you, after _twelve years_ , because what did I expect, for you to pine after me even after you asked someone else to marry you? Good move, Gilbert.”

“Erin, but there’s… I…”

“Holtz, please. It’s taken me a while, and I’ve done a lot of soul-searching, but I know where I’m at now, and where you are, and I want us to be friends,” Erin finished. “I really, really want us to be friends.”

Friends.

Holtzmann nodded.

She nodded, but there was a little voice inside her mind that told her that this was it, this was her crossroads where she could do something she thought she never would and take one final chance or really lose Erin forever.

Holtzmann set her sandwich down on the side table next to the couch and placed her hand over Erin’s.

“Do you _really_ just want to be friends, Erin?”

The professor swallowed and turned her eyes to Holtzmann’s.

The years shifted between them and for a moment, it was like no time had passed.

Everything came rushing back like a tide out of nowhere and the roboticist was caught, drug under, and lost to the currents, to everything she’d always known she wanted and couldn’t stand to lose forever.

“We… you… I don’t want to lose you.”

Holtz sighed and brought their intertwined hands to rest over her own heartbeat and her gaze was fearless when it met Erin’s.

The years had changed so much, but it hadn’t changed _this_.

“How can you lose me when I’m right _here_?”

She couldn’t bring her voice to raise above a whisper.

Holtzmann, for all her verbal ramblings and ability to speak quickly on her feet with a clever retort or witty comeback, had no more words left in the bank.

She leaned in, slowly at first, waiting for Erin to pull back or for her own common sense to kick in and tell her this was _wrong_ , that she was here to _stop_ this brakeless train however she could, even if she had to put herself in harm’s way, whatever came first.

Erin didn’t move.

In fact, she licked her lips and held her breath, waiting.

Holtz released an audible moan, one that broke the precious threads of a tremulous universe that had been holding them in suspense and misery for so long, for _too_ long.

She brought a gloved hand to the professor’s cheek, stroking down her jawline with shaky fingers.

“I can’t just be your friend, Erin. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Oh, Jillian, I---“

“Just kiss me.”

Holtz moved in when Erin shifted, seemingly keen to meet her more than halfway, but neither was fast enough. The office door swung open and both women jumped apart. Erin barely saved her sandwich in the shuffle, but when she did, she straightened on the couch and Holtz positioned herself awkwardly, one arm slung sideways behind her and the other hand through her hair.

When the roboticist’s eyes fell on the door, she was shocked to see the stranger from the bar standing there with two cups of coffee in his hands.

“Derek, what are you doing here?”

 _Derek_. So he did have a name.

“I thought I’d surprise you. Did I come at a bad time?”

Erin looked at Holtz, fear and sadness in her eyes.

“I was just having lunch with… you met Holtzmann, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, smiling in the blonde’s direction and raising a cup as acknowledgement. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Likewise,” she said, but she didn’t mean it. Erin stood up to grab the coffee from Derek and lingered a little too close to him for Holtzmann’s comfort.

“I’ll leave you brilliant ladies to your work, but, um... if you’re free tonight, I’d love to cook you dinner at my place,” he said, looking at Erin with a hopeful smile. “I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to follow through with our plans.”

Plans?

Holtz’s gaze passed from Erin to Derek and then back to Erin.

“Can I give you a call later tonight?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll look forward to it,” he said, then smiled at Holtzmann before walking backwards through the door. “Have a nice day.” Before he was gone, he leaned in and placed a kiss on Erin’s cheek, and she noticed how the professor lit up at the contact. She shut the door and leaned against it, but Holtz immediately looked away.

“Holtz, listen, I---“

“How long have you been seeing him?”

“Since New Year’s Eve, but it’s not serious yet, and we’ve only been out on four dates, but I---“

“Four dates in six weeks, with your busy schedule? You must like him a lot,” Holtzmann said.

“He’s nice,” Erin replied. “He’s nice, and you’re…”

“I’m engaged,” Holtzmann finished. “I’m engaged, so we can’t do this. Fuck, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Holtz shoved her hands into her hair and put her head between her knees, releasing a low, exasperated groan.

Erin moved quickly and knelt in front of her, placing both hands on the roboticist’s knees on either side of her head, trying to get some sort of reaction, anything that seemed like a glimmer of hope.

“Holtz, if I’d have known you felt… I wouldn’t have ever left with him, I wouldn’t have done a lot of things, but I couldn’t handle being without you, I couldn’t deal with being alone anymore,” Erin said, and the harsh light of truth fell over them. When Holtz looked up, it was with bleary eyes and a sad, tearful smile.

“You shouldn’t be alone, Erin. You deserve someone who will give you the world, and that guy… he looks at you like he wants to do that.”

“Say the word and I’ll end it with him.”

“You let me down easy, Gilbert. You said you wanted to be friends. You said that because… because of him, right?”

“I said it because I _meant_ it, Jillian. But if I can have _more_ , I’m greedy, and I’m selfish, and I won’t let you go a second time.”

“We should just be friends,” Holtzmann said after a few seconds and she watched the tears stream down Erin’s face as her heart solidified and she felt a cold front shift where love and hope had been before, mere moments ago. “Our ship sank.”

“Sailed, you mean.”

“No, I don’t. Not this time.”

Erin choked back a sob.

“I need to go,” Holtzmann finished, and Erin moved away, settling back onto the couch and watched the roboticist walk toward the door, gathering up her sandwich, her head held as high as she could manage even though her posture was slumped and forlorn.

“Can I call you sometime? We can go for a movie, maybe order Chinese and invite Abby?”

Holtz turned and gave Erin a sad smile that looked like goodbye.

“Sure, Gilbert.”

The door closed behind her, and Erin knew – just like she knew science, like she knew physics – that this time, it would be Holtzmann who didn’t answer her calls or return her messages, even if she left thousands.


	7. I'll Burn the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hang onto your butts, friends. This chapter is one hell of a ride. 
> 
> But I think you'll be okay by the end. 
> 
> I hope.

During the weeks that followed, even her precious space robots couldn’t pull Holtzmann from the deep throes of melancholy.

Weeks dragged on and turned into a month, and then Spring had sprung, painting the world with new life outside Holtzmann’s window. The roboticist woke every morning and glared out the window, grumbling to herself about how the world could seem so full of green promises and hope when she felt the world crumbling into darkness around her like an infinite black hole.

She was sucked deep into her guilt, and she just got _so tired_ of smiling when she lied to Casey about how excited she was to plan their wedding.

She could feel an itch under her skin, deep enough to rattle her bones when she smiled, exhausted, at Patty when they had their rare video-chats and she said everything was _fine_ and _great_ and _Columbia was such a great decision_.

Holtzmann learned how to avoid Erin whenever and wherever possible, though she did occasionally stop by to see Abby because she liked the other professor, liked the way a similarly dimpled smile could lift her spirits even if the older woman could peer deep into the blonde’s eyes and know they were filled with self-loathing and the sting of longing that had been pushed too far. Abby didn’t ask, didn’t ask why she wasn’t returning Erin’s calls and didn’t invite her over to places where her best friend might possibly attend.

And she was very, very careful not to mention Derek.

Derek, who still showed up at Columbia on random afternoons, just like he had on that fateful day in Erin’s office like some knight in shining armor with his kind smiles and his perfect memorization of all the things Erin liked. She couldn’t fault him, because it was what she did for her lovers, what she liked to do to show affection when she was _serious_ about someone because words weren’t easy for Holtzmann, not all the time. Emotion was a tricky, finicky mistress that got her tongue-tied and jerked around the cogs in her wheel, taking away from everything else about her that was a well-oiled machine.

She’d look at faces and interpret incorrectly, then make an inappropriate joke and fluster moments later, when it went badly. She’d laugh at herself.

Holtz would think a promise meant forever when it only meant ‘for now’ because she banked on some foolish, eternal brand of optimism that seared into her skin and allowed her to taste reveries of some grander, promised land that she’d never get to visit.

She struggled, and she longed for someone to pick apart the pieces and call her ‘beautiful’ and ‘perfect’ and kiss every idiosyncrasy until she believed them instead of launching a tirade of questions in her addled mind that new robots and machinery, but never the inner-workings of humanity’s blueprint.

A small part of Holtzmann that believed in happy endings was still waiting for the day that pieces of a dusty puzzle that had been shoved in the back of some rummage sale would surface and fall back into her arms just in time to be put back together again like Humpty Dumpty on his wall.

But then she saw Abby’s face in the rare moments when she asked about Erin, and she _knew_.

She knew Erin was happy with him.

And she knew she was supposed to smile it off, wish her well, and think about what colors she wanted for the floral arrangements at her wedding.

Because Casey thought she was beautiful and perfect.

Casey had tried to kiss every piece of a jumbled mind that worked in binary code, but never tethered to the tapestry of flesh and blood, not the way it should, the way people always told her was good and proper.

Casey had _tried_ to love her the way Holtzmann knew with every fiber of her being that Erin Gilbert could.

The problem, she devised when she tightened a final screw into a dousing mechanism on her new Rover, wasn’t with her fiancée.

The problem was with her.

It was her cross to bear, her albatross to carry until someone took pity on her poor soul for not being strong enough to break a heart in exchange for something that felt like every childhood daydream she’d ever had.

Holtzmann had nobody to blame but herself.

And so she slept in late and watched her students work on projects that she should have poured more of herself into because they were brilliant, everything a proud professor would want to see crossing her desk.

When sleep didn’t come easily, she turned to the bottle, and she’d always been a lightweight, but it numbed the pain she felt whenever she thought about what she could have had if she’d acted sooner, before Erin was happy with someone else, before there were four hearts at stake instead of two.

It was a shitty coping mechanism, and she knew it.

But when she tasted the sweetness of pineapple juice mixed with a hint of rum that was veiled, but only slightly because of how strong she liked to pour her drinks, she could taste Erin on her tongue and remember.

It wasn’t enough to warm her body at night, wasn’t enough to fill a phantom space that would permanently be on reserve for someone else even if her fiancée had slept there weeks ago, but it was occasionally enough to trick her mind.

Abby expressed concern right before Spring break, because she worried about how Holtzmann would handle not only the anniversary of their vacation so many years ago, but being left to her own devices without a plethora of work or students to keep her busy.

Abby offered to check in on the roboticist, just like any good friend would do, and Holtz had never expected Abby Yates to become one of her best friends – not when Erin was still in the equation and it was clear where her loyalties lied – but somehow, the universe had decided it was meant to be. Holtz denied her offer and went to the liquor store to stock up so she could hole up in her studio and count the days until she could return to work.

Patty called to check in, instead, and Holtz was shocked to learn that Abby had tracked the historian down when the two women barely knew each other and hadn’t really spoken in years.

“You need to talk to me, Holtzy,” Patty murmured into the phone, her voice thick with concern and Holtz was just glad that her friend couldn’t physically see her, couldn’t take stock of the dark circles under her eyes and the bloat in her cheeks caused by stress eating that was a prelude to days without eating at all.

“I’m good, Pattycakes. I just… I miss you guys, s’all,” Holtzmann said, trying to ease a softness into her tone. A distinct sound of a throat being cleared shook her because she was sensitive to volume, and she prepared herself for an onslaught.

“Your ass coulda bought a plane ticket home for Spring break, but you ain’t here, so try again.”

“I can’t tell you,” Holtz tried instead. She knew Patty wouldn’t be keen on that answer, but she hoped it would at least give her a bit of wiggle room, of mercy to avoid what was really troubling her, and she _hated_ herself for keeping secrets from Patty.

Patty, who had never judged her.

Patty, who had seen her when she was heartbroken over numerous girls who would never love her back, and told her she’d find someone who would appreciate her and never, ever let her go.

Patty, who had given her hope when she flew back to Pittsburgh after their Hawaiian vacation.

This was the person who knew her better than anyone, and yet she feared judgment so much that she stayed still and quiet and wandered across her kitchen for another bottle of booze.

“Why, you kill a man or something? Because I promised you years ago that I’d help you bury a body so long as you swear to me it was some sorta freak accident or they deserved it,” her friend said, and Holtz chuckled softly, because that conversation had been amusing, to say the very least.

“No, I didn’t kill a man,” Holtz mumbled as shaky hands roamed her bare cupboards for a glass. She decided not to grab one – most of them were dirty – and so she screwed the top off the rum and slumped against the refrigerator, pressing the bottle to her lips and taking a long pull. “I fucked up, Patty.”

“Baby girl, are you _drunk_ right now? It’s two o’clock in the afternoon.”

“I am… I am _drinking_ , and there’s a difference,” Holtz said, stammering a bit as she fumbled with the bottle; it was another twinge of guilt because she knew this wouldn’t fix anything, she knew she’d done wrong, and she couldn’t seem to _stop_ making mistakes.

“Sounds like you been drinking for a hot minute,” Patty grumbled. “That ain’t what you did, though. That wouldn’t make Abby fucking call me out of the blue to tell me you were spiraling into some real shit, Holtzmann.”

“She just doesn’t want me to spend Spring Break alone, it’s fiiiiine.”

“Whatcha drinkin’?”

Holtzmann hiccupped, and it wasn’t as tasty going down, that was for damn sure.

“Malibu.”

“So this an _Erin_ thing.”

“I love her, Patty,” Holtz replied, and there it was – the clear, painful truth shining like a beacon out in the open while the Earth turned around her.

“Yeah, I got that,” Patty sighed, and it wasn’t judgment Holtzmann heard, it was clarity.

Understanding.

“So what are you gonna do about it?”

“Marry someone else, I guess. What else _can_ I do? She’s dating someone now. It’s just not supposed to happen for us,” Holtz lamented, but it was enough to make her put down the bottle and wring her hands while she balanced the phone between her ear and shoulder, leaning on her friend’s wisdom to bail her out again.

“Do you love Casey?”

Holtzmann tugged fingers through her hair, loose waves falling around her shoulders, and twisted near her scalp.

“Yeah, but it’s not the same.”

“Uh-huh, and is that fair to her?”

_Christ, Patty is good at this._

“No, because she’s… she’s so good, Pattycakes. She’s always been there for me, and fuck, I _should_ love her, and I should be excited to spend the rest of my life with her, but I’m just…” Holtz rambled and twisted and tugged and felt like she was going to scalp herself before she hissed and exhaled a shaky breath into the open space, feeling a weight settle in her heart like a stone and then lift. Because the truth really could set you free. “I’m just _not_.”

“You know what you gotta do, then. Gotta set her free, give her a chance to find that someone who’s gonna do it right,” Patty said, her tone solemn, but still edged with gentility because it was what Holtzmann needed.

“Are you mad? I know you’re… you love her, too.”

“That’s my shit to deal with, honey, but you gotta deal with yours,” Patty said. “I ain’t mad, but I’m just… you sure this is what you really want?”

“We’re not done yet,” Holtz said. “Erin and I--- we’re not _done_ , it doesn’t feel finished.”

“Then take a fucking shower and go get her, Holtzy.”

“I love you, you know.”

“You’d damn well better, now shoo.”

 

* * *

 

 

It felt like a scene from a movie. Holtz showered and changed in record time, trying to find something suitable to wear – something perfect – and settled on simple and eclectic instead. Harem pants and a crop top were the first things her hands landed on, and she was in such a rush she didn’t even put her hair up before she sprinted out her front door.

Holtz wasn’t even sure she’d locked it, but in that moment, nothing really seemed to matter.

She’d gotten good at hailing a cab since she’d moved to New York, and so she caught one on the first try and flipped the bird to some random guys that whistled at her – and her bare midriff – when she flung herself into the cab and rattled off a familiar address that was only ten minutes away. She could have walked there, _run_ there, but it seemed like too long, and maybe she’d lose her nerve in the interim.

She’d square things away with Erin, and then she’d talk to Casey.

It felt like she was doing things in the wrong order, and she knew it would give a more powerful argument if she had talked to her fiancée first, but some things just couldn’t wait and every second away from Erin was a second that dragged and burned and she just couldn’t bear it anymore.

She ate six breath mints in the cab, crunching them to hide the smell of alcohol that still lingered even though she’d brushed her teeth in the shower.

Holtzmann wasn’t drunk, not quite yet, because the shower had been sobering and she’d gotten a little bit of a tolerance over the past few weeks given how much she took to engaging in excess. She was buzzed, but knew she was still perfectly capable of doing what she needed to do; now, it was just a question of what Erin would say, how the professor would react, and it had to be favorable, the roboticist thought, because she’d seen the hurt in Erin’s eyes when she’d said goodbye and meant it.

She’d seen the thread of disappointment holding her in place when Casey had showed up for Christmas.

She’d felt the heat in touches that lingered too long and the shy, almost embarrassed smile whenever she caught the professor staring.

Erin felt it, too.

Derek was a consolation prize, second to her, to what they’d both always wanted, and Holtz just had to remind her of that and promise her the world like she’d always wanted to do.

Holtzmann gave the cab driver money – way too much money – in a jumble of wadded bills that she threw in his direction and then flew up Erin’s steps, knocking on her front door in a loud, obnoxious sequence that she knew would get the older woman’s attention.

She knocked until her knuckles ached and didn’t feel a goddamn thing.

The door swung open, and Derek looked at her with a confused, but still friendly smile.

“Where’s Erin? I need to… I need to talk to her,” Holtzmann breathed, and she realized that she probably looked like a panicked, manic mess when his smile fell, ever so slightly, and he turned over his shoulder.

“Sweetheart? Dr. Holtzmann is here to see you,” Derek called, and Holtz _hated_ that he was respectful enough to use her proper title. They were unfamiliar, and she’d earned it, but it still felt so wrong.

Erin showed up seconds later, tucked behind his broad shoulder, and the neutral expression on her face dropped to panic a second later.

“Holtzmann, what’s wrong? Did something happen? You’re trembling,” Erin said, pushing her way past Derek and meeting her halfway on the steps.

“Am I?” Holtz asked, because she didn’t feel it, didn’t know.

“Your hands are shaking,” Erin said softly, reaching out to touch one, just to still it, before she looked at Derek over her shoulder.

“Can you give us a minute?” Holtz asked over Erin’s shoulder, staring into Derek’s eyes and she realized that maybe she’d snapped a little, but she just didn’t want to live in this nightmare anymore.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, then turned to Erin with an unsure expression on his face. “Do I need to do anything about the flight, you think, or…?”

“No, it should be fine, we’ll make it,” Erin replied, smiling at him before looking back to Holtzmann. Derek merely nodded and then went back into the house, shutting the front door behind him. Once they were alone, Erin looked into Holtz’s eyes and ran her thumbs over the back of the roboticist’s hands. It had always calmed her, always brought her back to center, and when the blonde’s breathing fell into a normal pattern, the professor spoke again. “Holtz, are you okay?”

“What’s he talking about? What flight?”

“That’s not important, you’re here… and I haven’t seen you in… is something wrong? Did something happen?”

Holtzmann blinked and swallowed hard, tilting her head sharply to the side.

“I’m good, are you… are you going somewhere?”

“Holtzmann, please,” Erin said, and the tight line of her lips was all the roboticist needed before she yanked her hand free and dropped it to her side.

“No, don’t---“ The blonde crossed her arms and stepped down, closer to the sidewalk, further from Erin. “What’s going on, Erin?”

“You show up at my doorstep after weeks of avoiding my calls and suddenly I owe _you_ an explanation?” Erin’s words were sharp, harsh, and Holtz grimaced.

“You never gave _me_ one after Hawaii, so…”

“Don’t do that,” Erin said, shaking her head. “That’s not fair.”

“Are you going somewhere with him?”

Erin closed her eyes and pushed her fingers against her temples.

“Yes, if you must know,” Erin said. “We’re going to Italy for Spring break.”

Holtzmann laughed, spun herself around in a circle, and flung her arms around in the air.

“Well isn’t that just fucking _awesome_? I know how you get on Spring break, so he’s a lucky guy,” she spat, her eyes wild when she looked back at Erin.

“Please _stop_ ,” Erin begged, and Holtz could see the tears welling up in the professor’s eyes when she looked back, when she dared to make contact again.

“Super romantic of him, by the way,” Holtzmann said, bitterness holding her words hostage as she continued, even though she knew better. She knew she was driving the final nail into the coffin, and yet she forged ahead. “Guess you found ‘the one.’”

Erin crossed her arms and wiped at a fat tear that rolled down her cheek. Her jaw was set, hard, and her eyes were stone.

“Maybe I did. Why do you care?”

Holtz laughed again, a stiff chuckle that expelled from her mouth like a gunshot.

“I don’t. I really fucking don’t. Have a nice trip,” Holtzmann replied. “Tell Casanova I say _arrivederci_.”

The roboticist gave a little bow and sulked down the sidewalk.

She finished the bottle of Malibu as soon as she got home.

 

* * *

 

 

After classes were back in session, Erin stormed down the hallways to GISS like a hurricane, breathing fire and brimstone in her wake.

Nobody had seen the usually reserved, put-together physicist like this, with anger in her eyes that simmered and smoldered like she wanted to tear the earth apart underneath her.

Even Abby stayed away, because she _knew_ how hurt her friend was, how she’d tried so hard to patch something with Holtzmann and forge it into something good, but the blonde had ruined it, single-handedly bringing Erin to her knees without thought or concern.

Erin found Holtzmann with a soldering iron in her hands and yellow goggles sitting, crooked, on her beautiful face.

“Holtzmann,” Erin barked, causing the younger woman to look up. The tools quieted seconds later, but the goggles stayed put.

“Yello,” she sighed, ruffling a gloved hand through messy curls, and there was a wave of sadness that tucked around her every pore, a slump to her shoulders, a deafening cry of defeat and misery.

“We need to talk,” Erin said, her words sharp, but fading.

How could she kick someone when she was obviously down?

“Shoot,” the roboticist said, and moved to the front of her work bench, clearing a space and hopping up on it backwards, dangling her legs over the edge as she rolled up the sleeves of a crinkled, gray button-down that had seen better days as it hung from her slim figure.

“You never told me why you showed up at my house last week,” Erin said, searching for answers in blue eyes that wouldn’t lift from the floor.

“Doesn’t matter, don’t sweat it,” she replied, but that wasn’t good enough. The physicist breathed hard, digging a heel into the concrete floor, and took a few steps closer.

“No, you owe me this,” Erin said, and her words had an edge again as they ground out through her teeth. For a second, she felt the fury bubble once more, simmering and flying over her skin so it left goosebumps in its wake. “Jillian, _look at me_.”

“It. Doesn’t. Matter,” Holtz said, her eyes wet when she tore them from the floor. They were red and painful, her neck and face was blotchy as if she’d been trying to hold back the tears for much longer than they’d been talking, and Erin wondered if maybe she hadn’t been crying all day, but that seemed ludicrous.

“Maybe not to you, but… I wanted to have a good time in Italy with a man who really, really cares about me, and I tried,” Erin said, her hands balling into fists as her agitation topped the charts again, even though it broke something in her to see Holtzmann cry. “I tried, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and so we came home early.”

“It was just unfinished business, Er. Didn’t mean to wreck your good time,” Holtz mumbled.

“You can do better than that.”

Holtzmann thumbed the sides of her glasses, counted her fingers from thumbs to pinkies, then backwards, rolled her head on her shoulders, and kicked her legs faster, then faster, then started kicking the work bench and rattling the equipment and Erin didn’t know that Holtz understood how hard she was kicking with those heavy combat boots, but she moved forward and placed her hands on the smaller woman’s thighs, stilling the physical movements.

“Don’t touch me,” Holtz sobbed, but it was weak, and she crumpled in the physicist’s arms.

Erin wrapped Holtz up and held her close, stroking her back instinctually, like every cell in her body ached to bring the blonde comfort, even if all the anger she felt, all the confusion, was the roboticist’s fault.

“Shh, Jillian, just… just talk to me, okay?”

“You’re mad,” the blonde sobbed.

“I’m a little mad, but that’s just because I don’t know what you were trying to _do_ , and the way you acted, it was…” Erin paused, trying to choose her words carefully because she knew the younger woman was dangling on a precipice, and knew that she could help or hinder her, but it would only be one or the other. “It hurt my feelings.”

“I didn’t wanna… never wanted to hurt you,” Holtzmann said, her words hot through tears that streamed down her face before she pulled back and Erin dropped her hands, giving the woman space as she wiped her eyes and sniffled. “You know I’d never want that, don’t you?”

“I do. I know.”

“I just… he was _there_ and he called me _Doctor_ and you seemed happy with him, so I couldn’t---“

She was about to lose herself to tears again, and Erin could see her starting to crack, so she took a chance by crooking her finger under the blonde’s chin right when she was about to gaze more holes into the floor and tilted it up, softening her gaze as their eyes met.

“What couldn’t you do?”

“I couldn’t tell you I love you when I thought I’d lost you for good,” Holtzmann replied, and her words were so soft, she almost didn’t hear them. Erin barely heard them, but she felt them resonate through her chest and fill her with an effervescent warmth.

“You… you love me?”

“Erin, I never _stopped_ loving you.”

The professor pulled back and paced, running her hands through her hair and pulling uncomfortably at her clothing and long minutes stretched between them. Finally, she looked back at the roboticist who was still perched, like a statue, on her bench, patiently waiting. She looked as if she expected more anger, more yelling, and winced when Erin finally looked at her, and the fear she saw made Erin ache.

“You’re getting married. You’re leaving in two months, why would you tell me this _now_?”

“I left her.”

Erin stopped breathing.

Her entire body went rigid and still.

“You… what? When?”

“I left your place and drank myself into a stupor,” Holtzmann said, standing up on shaky legs as she walked toward Erin and shoved her hands into the deep pockets of her overalls. “I had a bitch of a hangover the next day, but I knew that your relationship status didn’t change my feelings, didn’t change what I had to do because Casey’s… she’s amazing. I couldn’t marry her because I’m in love with someone else. It just sucks that my someone is already with some guy who took her on a trip to Italy.”

“I came back early,” Erin murmured.

“Anyway, there it is. I have a long road to climb before I get over you, Gilbert, but at least now you know and I’m not walking on ice with you anymore,” Holtzmann said.

Erin laughed.

It took mere seconds to close the distance between them, but it felt like lifetimes had passed before they got to that moment.

Erin’s hands found either side of Holtz’s face and she pressed their lips together, seeking the heat and familiarity that only the roboticist could provide.

Holtz groaned into Erin’s mouth, content to die happy in that moment, in the physicist’s arms because she had everything she had _ever_ wanted and could suspend time and space for just one more second. In that moment, they were transported back to a younger, wilder love that seemed like it, alone, could take on the harsh swell of reality, the space between seconds that carved a gap between their hearts and kept them apart for so long.

For _too_ long.

Erin’s tongue traced along Holtzmann’s and she sighed at the feeling of strong fingertips sinking into her hips and tugging, desperately, at their bodies like the blonde wanted to fuse them together like one of her machines.

Holtzmann tugged sharply on Erin’s bottom lip and eased the hurt with a gentle lick before she sucked, hard, on the same spot and dove in again.

Erin backed Holtzmann into her workbench, wanting to tear at skin and clothing until she couldn’t feel anything but the woman she’d been longing to rediscover since she’d set foot inside Columbia University and their eyes met and held like their souls recognized their other half immediately.

When Holtzmann breathed Erin’s own name against the professor’s lips, she knew every tear she’d shed had been worth it.

When Erin tangled her fingers into messy blonde curls, Holtzmann knew all her days spent wasted on bitter daydreams were paving the way toward this very kiss.

It was a kiss that could end worlds and create new futures.

It was a kiss that could heal and persevere through the most treacherous darkness.

It was a promise and forgiveness wrapped into drawn-out seconds that felt like _years_.

Erin broke away, gasping for breath, and Holtz held her steady.

“That was two in one sentence, you know,” she sighed, tracing her thumb across the blonde’s swollen lower lip. “You’re really, _really_ bad at this.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah,” Erin said, and she laughed her way through happy tears that cascaded down her cheeks while Holtzmann rubbed them away, concern washing over her face because she needed to know, to be _sure_ they were tears of joy before she tasted them on the physicist’s skin, chasing them away with tender kisses. “But I love you, anyway.”

“Where do we go from here?”

It was an innocent question, one that Erin knew was about Derek, about their future, about the questions that they still needed to answer, the hurt that needed to be soothed.

But for now, she only had one real answer.

“Your place,” Erin nodded.

“My place?” Holtz raised an eyebrow, another question.

“Mhmm. We have a _lot_ of catching up to do.”


	8. I'd Sell My Soul (For One Love)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this was a bit of a wait, and I apologize for that. Is it better that it's basically 4,000 words of smut?
> 
> Yes, you heard me. Smut. Reunion smut. Mild kinks, too, so if you like your Holtzbert sexy times to be strictly vanilla, maybe tread cautiously? It's nothing major, just not 100% vanilla. I gotta dip into the other flavors even if they're all lovey-dovey (which they are, finally!) But anyway, you guys are incredible, and I'm so floored by your support so I banged this out (heh) just for you. 
> 
> P.S. Sorry about your pants, maybe? Nah, I'm not actually sorry.

Holtzmann’s studio apartment was small, quaint, and a little cluttered with all her various odds and ends of devices and inventions that hadn’t yet taken flight. It suited her, which was the first comment out of Erin’s mouth – even though she’d been there before – but those words weren’t what the engineer wanted to feel pressed against her skin.

Not when it had been twelve long, lonely years of dreaming of this moment so much, so hard that she had questioned whether she might transfer some fragmented piece of her consciousness into a parallel fantasy land where the years had been kinder to them both, easier on their shattered hearts and separated souls that felt the sting of miles like lifetimes.

“ _Holtzmann_ ,” the moan was ripped from the back of the professor’s throat in a strangled howl as the roboticist sucked a dark mark against the hollow of Erin’s throat. They were up against Holtz’s dresser, the physicist’s hands tangled in blonde hair that she was trying, desperately, to free from its messy confines at the top of the roboticist’s head.

“It feels so good to hear you say my name like that again,” the blonde whispered, her voice awestruck and raw as she left another mark higher up – there would need to be scarves, methods taken to cover the proof of their reunion, but neither woman cared. Holtz’s hands were _everywhere_ , rediscovering planes and lines and old marks and new marks, committing each new inch and previously charted territory to memory all over again, just like she’d done during the week of her sexual awakening. For all the hunger that throbbed in their veins, pulling like gravity against the tide, they took their time. Each movement was calculated, slow, as if they’d recently discovered that they genuinely had all the time in the world.

Because they did, now.

Or, at least, it seemed like they did.

The roboticist’s fingers unbuttoned Erin’s blouse, and the physicist was content to watch her facial expressions change as she uncovered each new inch of bare skin. Her jaw was slack, her eyes glassy, and when the material parted at the waist of Erin’s slacks, she licked her lips and glanced down to the redhead’s navel, where her hands reached out to skim smooth, soft skin with a reverent touch.

Holtzmann brought her hands up to cup Erin’s breasts through her bra, finding them to still be the perfect handful, the perfect fit. Erin sighed and arched into the touch, pushing her hips forward and bowing her spine; she could feel the warmth of the blonde’s touch even through lacy fabric, and her nipples hardened, poking against Holtz’s palms, which shifted to spike the friction by rubbing her through the fabric.

Light kisses were peppered over Erin’s shoulders as the shirt fell off and slid down one side of the professor’s body, nesting in the crook of her arm before Holtz followed it with her bra strap. The physicist wasn’t precisely sure _when_ Holtz had unfastened her bra, but she didn’t mind the loss of it when the garment joined her shirt on the floor in a heap. Erin sighed and caved into the warmth that surrounded her when Holtz’s body swayed closer, hips gyrating near her spread thighs, though too far to amplify the friction she desperately craved – she ached, but didn’t want to speed up the gratification that always came with their coupling.

“God, Erin,” Holtz whispered against her jawline as her lungs expanded and she breathed deeply, a sound that resonated with the satisfaction of being back _home_ at long last. It was relief, the ability to breathe normally again without a throbbing ache in her lungs and heart because she was stuck loving a memory and nothing more.

“I’d wait for you forever,” Erin said softly, placing her hand on the blonde’s strong jawline and cupping it with shaky fingertips, because the notion of forever seemed so romantic, but the distance they’d already walked had nearly killed them both. It was an impractical construct, but it seemed so fitting for the moment, a culmination of a thousand years of drought that was now being bathed by an open, bleeding sky.

“You don’t have to wait a second longer,” Holtz said. She seared her promises into the professor’s lips. “It’s already been long enough.”

_Too long_ , their eyes whispered when they met again and Erin’s face broke into a smile because the moment was heavy and yet felt like as a feather, but the reality of it was what grounded her, tethered her to the concept of finally having all her dreams come true.

Erin unfastened the final pin and let Holtzmann’s blonde mane come tumbling down, spilling over her shoulders, and she looked at this new version of her lover.

She’d been looking at her for months, stolen glances and admiration that wasn’t hers to take, but this was the first time she’d let her heated survey go unobstructed by nagging guilt.

Erin’s eyes found every new, hardened smile line that showed that she had spent her years suspended in happiness. She noted the scrunch of a brow that held weight of intense concentration, a product and testament to the roboticist’s genius. Her hands were roughened by years of hard work, of intricate detailing and the skill to bring metal and electricity to life. There was wisdom in her eyes, but she hadn’t lost that spark of curiosity, the flicker that thirst for knowledge, but she looked at Erin more like an equal now than she had before.

When Holtzmann looked at her now, it made the professor’s breath catch in the back of her throat because years ago, when the blonde had been a co-ed with big dreams and a megawatt smile, she had been eager to learn.

Now, she was eager to show what she’d learned and how she’d perfected her own skill as a lover. Holtzmann wanted to show Erin how she was more equipped than ever to dismantle her over and over again.

“Take me to bed.”

Erin voiced her breathy request, and Holtz moaned and nodded, biting her bottom lip suddenly, a sharp tug of her own teeth in a way that was almost too hard, but Erin could see the want in her come unhinged as she lifted her up and made the short distance to her bed from the dresser and unceremoniously deposited the professor in the center, on top of the blankets, with her own slim figure following suit.

It was blessed terra firma under her back as she sank into the mattress, pushed by Holtz’s weight and she sighed at the contact, at the pressure against her ache that promised completion as the roboticist pulled at her slacks and hastily unbuttoned and unzipped them with heat in her eyes.

“Easy, tiger. You’re not even close to naked,” Erin chided, looked at Holtz’s rumpled clothing that was still wholly present.

“I don’t need to be naked to make you come in my mouth,” the roboticist practically growled as she kissed down Erin’s hip bones and started to push down Erin’s slacks, leaving her long legs bare in seconds before she fixed her teeth to the corner of Erin’s panties and pulled.

She responded without thinking, the mental image that flashed in her brain of how good Holtz’s mouth had always been distracting her from her goal, which was to feel skin on skin before she lost herself to selfish pleasure. Her hips bucked and eased the passage of the last piece of fabric that kept her from complete nudity as Holtz tugged it off with her teeth and launched it across her apartment.

“Holtz, _baby_ , I need to feel you.”

“Oh, you’re _gonna_ ,” the blonde promised as she kissed her way up Erin’s legs, parting them insistently with her palms flat against the redhead’s thighs, and Erin shook her head.

“No, I need you naked, with me. All over me,” she begged.

She could hear the blonde swallow and saw a nod of her head, curls shaking around her shoulders as she sat up on her knees for a moment, stripping out of her tank top – she wasn’t wearing a bra – and unfastening her suspenders. It was when she got to the button of her jeans that Erin noticed the tremble in her hands.

“Are you nervous?”

Blue eyes met her and Holtz responded.

A shake of her head, but it took a second.

Erin thought she could see tears starting to form and sat up immediately, placing her hands over Holtz’s, steadying them, then brought both to her mouth and kissed the blonde’s palms, nuzzled each finger, and gazed into her lover’s eyes.

“We can stop,” she said, nodding. “Maybe this is too fast, it’s okay.”

Holtz’s eyes widened and she grunted.

“No. No, it’s not that,” she said, her voice low and sure. “It’s just… you’re really _here_ , this is really _happening_.”

Erin bit her bottom lip and smiled, then brushed her hands over Holtz’s cheek before she moved to where the blonde’s hands had abandoned.

“Let me do the rest.”

The physicist quickly pulled the button free and moved her hands down the zipper before she soothed fingertips over Holtz’s hipbones, dragging her thumbs along the smooth, pale space between flesh and fabric before she pushed the jeans down slim hips and pushed the roboticist backwards, not caring that her lover’s feet were in the wrong direction, pointing toward the pillows. Holtzmann pushed her feet against the mattress, pointed bony knees skyward, and Erin kissed all over scarred flesh, dimpled kneecaps, and quivering muscles in the blonde’s thighs as she found comic book characters on Holtz’s briefs with her fingertips and tugged at the elastic waistband once she was met with an enthusiastic nod, a permissive grunt, and a relieved sigh when they were naked together.

They were pressed so closely, skin to skin, that both women could feel their heartbeats thumping wildly against each other, pulsing through their partner’s skin as if the two organs longed to connect with as much fervor as the scientists did. Erin’s hands stroked Holtzmann’s cheek, and the roboticist leaned into the contact, nuzzling the soft skin and pressing a soft kiss there as they laid, side by side, content to just gaze into each other’s eyes and trail hands lazily down bare skin, retracing the paths they thought they’d never walk again, relearning, finding new scars and old scars and slimmer waists and rounder hips and other minor changes that came with age and time.

They’d lost so much time.

But now they got to start again.

Holtzmann kissed her and unleashed a whimper, one that bounced off the walls of the small studio with gratitude and wanton need as she gripped the back of Erin’s head and pushed the professor into the kiss, demanding out of nowhere as she jumped from zero to sixty and ground her hips against Erin’s. The professor sighed because she was used to eager touches and gentle testing, like the roboticist wanted to figure out her limits. This was different. This was the searing touch of a learned lover, one with practice and skill who remembered the tricks and the dance they’d started years ago, but wanted to change the choreography now and embark on something new.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Erin whispered the words against Holtz’s lips when the kiss broke again and the roboticist bored into her with blue eyes that were fathoms deep, cutting to the core of her.

“I keep waiting to wake up.”

“Want me to pinch you?”

Erin waggled her eyebrows, and Holtz smiled again; it was a relief to see the blonde pull herself out of that moment again, away from the bitter sweetness of the moment because she knew there were so many dreams that haunted them. She’d had them too, these dreams that had felt so vivid, like they’d found some hole in the space-time continuum and could be together, co-existing in a parallel dimension only to be pulled from sleep and find it was a dream that lingered on their pillows, in an empty bed, so close but still lost.

“I can think of better things,” the blonde smiled, a wicked upturn to her lips and then Erin was rolled onto her back, hands pinned above her head as Holtz rocked downward, brushing their lower bodies together in a tantalizing tease. Erin could feel damp curls against her own and she’d wanted to slide a hand between Holtz’s legs and see what she’d done to the other woman, but now she didn’t have to, because the blonde was dripping onto her skin and it was _everything_.

Clever hands pulled at her thigh and a few quick adjustments were made, a change in position that had Erin propped up against the headboard ever so slightly, enough to feel a burn in her lower abdominal muscles, but she didn’t care – she’d burn for this, break for this, _die_ for this moment with the woman she knew was her eternity. Her thighs fell open lewdly, and Holtz positioned one of her feet flat against the bed before moving like she was going to straddle the physicist’s thigh, but canted her hips sideways, toward Erin’s throbbing sex and met it with her own, molten heat.

“I didn’t teach you this,” Erin groaned with a long sigh, immediately rocking up to feel the pulse of Holtz’s clit against her own. Her hands tangled in the blonde head that was hovering above hers, a look of rapture etched onto those perfect features as she began to rock and thrust slowly, dragging their bodies together in wet, slow, _sliding_ movements that had both women panting in seconds because they wanted to move, but they also wanted it to _last._

“It’s good, though?”

“ _So_ fucking good.”

“Kiss me again.”

“Always.”

Their mouths moved with the same messy, languid pace as their lower bodies as they pushed each other higher, creating slick and sweat and a tangle of limbs. Erin’s fingernails dug into Holtz’s shoulders and the roboticist’s hands took purchase just above the professor’s hip bones, digging deep with the strength that those long, agile digits held. She drove harder into the movements, the friction boiling them until they came together with a grunt and a gasp, a cry and praises of each other’s names into a sloppy kiss that barely held together as it split at the seams. They were torn apart by shuddering and low, plaintive sighs while they held on just a moment longer, waiting to push through the last pangs of a startlingly powerful climax.

Erin shivered and pushed a sweaty curl behind Holtz’s ear, kissing the blonde’s jawline as she cradled the younger woman between her thighs and her hands fell down the curve of a slender, muscled back, fingertips content to trail up the dip of her spine, memorizing the hollows and planes, delighting in the goosebumps that rose to greet her. A wicked smile cracked the still of the moment and Holtz was on her back in seconds.

“Oof,” she grunted, then arched an eyebrow at Erin. It was a question, a ‘what are you doing?’ because for all she knew, they both needed a minute after that first rush had knocked the wind out of their sails.

“I need to taste myself on you,” Erin explained, and it was the last thing she said before she dove between the roboticist’s thighs and placed both of Holtz’s legs over her shoulders. The professor held her lover open with her fingers and wrapped her tongue around Holtzmann’s clit, sucking softly for a second before she slid her tongue lower, gathering the essence of both of them before it dripped down the blonde’s thigh. She lapped and licked, drinking Holtz in and savoring the sweetness, the familiar taste of herself coupled with her fondest memories of every time she’d gotten her fill, and yet still hadn’t had enough.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Holtz groaned, the sharp curse erupting right as her spine bowed and bent forward, lifting her torso slightly off the bed before Erin shoved her, slamming her hips down hard as she went back to her task, focused and determined, but also luxuriating in the opportunity that Holtzmann’s body presented. She wanted to do _everything_ , and then she wanted to work the list of seemingly endless possibilities backwards and every day for the rest of her life.

The professor’s clever tongue dipped between Holtz’s folds, a tease of penetration before she slid it deep, curling and flickering against the blonde’s inner walls and hot spots until she was a wriggling mess of jerky spasms above her, and even then, the redhead gripped harder, fighting against the current as her lover twisted in the wind.

Holtz suffered, but did it sweetly.

Erin carried on like this for long minutes, for close to an hour, building her up and breaking her down, living on every sigh and gasp and curse and words of love and praise.

Begging.

She fucking _loved_ the begging.

Her mouth was soaked, her chin was dripping, her own sex ached and her jaw was sore, but she didn’t quit.

“Erin, fuck, I _need_ to come,” Holtz begged as a series of low, clipped whimpers left her, higher-pitched than the ragged husk of her voice.

Erin looked up at her, coquettish, and licked her lips.

“Come for me, then.”

It was so simple, almost said with a shrug before she sucked on the blonde’s clit, hard, and Holtz howled as she exploded, gushing into the professor’s eager mouth.

 

* * *

 

 

“What is this?”

Erin tugged at the leather restraints against her wrists.

Holtzmann had gotten _kinky_.

“Revenge! No, vengeance,” Holtz mused as she fiddled with something underneath her bed. “You only made me angry that once.”

Erin looked at her with soft eyes, apologetic because she hadn’t meant to hurt her, hadn’t meant to choose Derek, hadn’t meant to give up on them, ever.

“I know what these are, but I don’t know what you’re _doing_.”

“Spicing it up,” she replied simply, a coy smile on her lips as she looked back up from underneath the bed before diving down again, humming as she searched.

Erin’s face was incredulous because it wasn’t like they were some old, married couple that needed to try new things to resurrect their sex drought and bring it back to life. They were brand new – they got to be _new_ again.

Holtz finally emerged, victorious, with a little cry to punctuate the movement of her hands as the blonde’s spoils were revealed.

Erin’s jaw _dropped_.

“Twelve years of missing you, of _wanting_ you doesn’t exactly make me crave vanilla, Gilbert,” she continued. “But if _you_ don’t want…”

“Oh, I _want_.”

“Safe word?”

“I trust you.”

“That’s not a very good safe word. It’s too _long_.”

Snaps were buckled and leather was adjusted.

Erin keened.

“I have to _take_ you, Erin.”

She was double checking, making sure, and it was sweet.

But there was no need.

“I’m clearly not going anywhere. You saw to that.”

Erin winked, and Holtzmann moaned before she skittered up the bed like a shot, hands tugging the redhead’s hips forward as she positioned herself between spread thighs.

“Ready?”

“For you? Always.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Fuck, it’s so _big_ ,” Erin groaned as Holtz started an easy pace inside her, gentle and languorous as their bodies clung together like this was the most natural thing in the world, like their orbits had finally rotated just enough that the gravitational force was too strong to resist.

“Stroke my ego, why dontcha?”

“Mm— _nng_.”

Holtzmann’s hips swiveled, making small circles once the length of the toy was all the way inside, pressed to the hilt, bringing them flush together and Erin wrapped her legs around the blonde’s waist, pushing her just a little deeper, which made the Holtz’s eyes roll back into her head.

Cause and effect.

Push and pull.

They were nature incarnate, slaves to their passion.

“Are you okay?”

But they still loved each other enough to be sure.

“Give it to me.”

Holtz retreated, pulling more than halfway out before she slammed out, because she wanted Erin to _feel_ this and needed to stake her claim.

The wet slap of their bodies was the perfect staccato beat to accompany a symphony of sound that left their mouths because for Holtz, the friction was incredible and for Erin, the depth and drag, the stretch and pull coupled with the _strength_ behind those perfect thrusts was making her head swim in a sea of lust.

“Harder.”

Holtz soothed the ache between her legs by pounding her hard into the soft surface beneath, pressing her body into the professor’s, pouring every ounce of herself into her lover’s body, unforgiving and relentless as her muscles clenched and grip tightened on her purchase. When Erin’s hips were too weak to meet hers, when she was too lost in her approaching climax, Holtzmann’s hands moved under her ass and lifted, pulling her forward with every inward thrust to pick up the slack.

Erin screamed, the sensations in her core quickly becoming too much, but Holtz just kept impaling her on the thick silicone and whenever a new barrier inside her broke, a piece of her shattered and acquiesced to her talented lover, giving herself over to the smaller woman with the knowledge she’d be safe there now.

She could stay here forever.

Just her and Holtzmann.

The way it was always meant to be.

“Close, mm _, Holtzmann_.”

“Say my name. Please. Please, Erin.”

Erin knew the vulnerability in the roboticist’s name, how she tucked it away as a private part of herself, one she didn’t trust others to handle or touch – and yet at the tiki bar, she’d given it to Erin willingly and basked in it when the professor used it with a gentle touch, with reverence and pride.

She’d tried not to fall on old habits because Holtzmann wasn’t hers.

That name wasn’t hers to say, to use.

“ _Mm,_ please.”

“Say my name when you come.”

“Come _with_ me. Come _inside_  me, please,” Erin groaned, because their shared orgasms were explosive and the fact that Holtz was so deep, was stripping her raw and vulnerable, right to the nerves, it was the salve her heart needed.

“Erin, _fuck_ ,” the blonde groaned, hips stuttering before she thrust randomly, abs quivering as she readjusted on her arms and tried to keep up a decent pace even though she was sinking, too.

Erin fought the restraints enough to tug Holtz's hair sharply and attempted to pull the blonde’s eyes to hers until Holtz got the hint, keeping them locked and focused as Erin's grip gave due to lack of reach. Holtz held tight where she couldn't, threading one hand in Erin's hair, and she promised herself in that moment that she’d go through a thousand painful deaths before she ever, _ever_ let this woman go again.

“ _Jillian_ ,” she moaned, putting power and love back into that name and claiming it for herself once more as she came, her mouth contorting into a silent scream but she kept her eyes open, fighting so she could watch the blonde’s face crumple.

Holtzmann’s face shifted, she bit down hard on her bottom lip and her eyes rolled back in her head as she groaned and grunted, then finally relaxed with a slow, breathy sigh, her hips still only when she’d fucked Erin through the last waves of her orgasm and rode hers down to a few, gentle aftershocks. Holtz reached up to unlock the restraints and kissed Erin's wrists before the physicist's arms fell slack at her sides with a dull thump against the mattress. The restraints were tossed and their bodies found each other again, settling and shifting like tectonic plates until they were in perfect alignment.

After a few seconds of basking in their mutual bliss, Holtzmann moved to retreat and Erin shook her head.

“I’m gonna be so sore tomorrow anyway. Just stay. For a little longer, please. Stay.”

Her hands fell onto Holtz’s sweaty back and stroked the soft skin as she pulled the other woman close, allowing her to drape over her prone body and wrapped arms around her.

“How do you feel about shower sex for round three?”

“You cannot be thinking about round three already,” Erin sighed and nuzzled the blonde’s neck.

“I have plans all the way through round eight,” the blonde said, propping up a little and waggling her eyebrows. “So tell me, Gilbert – just how far do you want me to take you?”

“To the stars,” she replied softly. “Anywhere you go, that’s home for me.”

“You know I was talking about orgasms, right?”

Erin chuckled, because they’d had so many serious moments, shed so many tears, that it was Holtzmann’s levity that would be her life preserver and finally set her world right again.

“If you wanna be serious, though, I’m considering _seriously_  never letting you leave this bed,” Holtzmann continued. “We’ll have to quit our jobs. No, we’ll get fired, I imagine, for not showing up. We’ll be _squatters_.”

“I love you so much,” Erin breathed. Holtz’s eyes were glassy when they met hers, and she knew the humor was a front – she was still tentative, still scared, still wondering if this would go away again or if their clock was still ticking. Erin could see it all etched there, even when she tried to shove it down deep.

“I’ll never get tired of hearing that.”

“I’m never going to stop saying it.”

“Good, ‘cause I love you, too.”

Erin kissed Holtz and whimpered when she finally withdrew.

Somehow, the ache still burned.

Somehow, she knew it always would.

“So… round three?”


	9. Kickstart My Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I went on vacation and life got fun and then exciting and then work tried to kill me with all these hours and new staff to train. 
> 
> I'm super apologetic about keeping you guys waiting. 
> 
> There's smut for you and a surprise at the end that I'm hoping you don't lynch me for. The smut's good, though, I hope. Thank you for your continued support, and I hope this chapter is worth the hella long wait. You are seriously the best.

Her limbs ached.

Holtzmann stretched, feeling the tug and pull in muscles that had atrophied because she’d slept harder than she had in _years_.

It was the satisfied sleep of a person who finally had everything they wanted.

The blonde shifted, throwing an arm beside her and grinned – and even her _smiles_ ached – when her limb hit a warm body that was snoring softly, brow knit even as the redhead was lost to a land that Holtzmann hoped was filled with peaceful, naughty dreams.

It was a difficult decision, the longing to wake Erin up for round… fuck, she couldn’t even remember because it didn’t matter what round they were on anymore, anyway. Holtz knew she should let the professor sleep, have her time in the quiet before they picked up again, and before time might have been an issue but it no longer was. Now, they had all the time in the world – for the rest of their days, if they wanted – and could exist in a shared space that didn’t feel foreign or stolen anymore. It didn’t belong to anyone else. It belonged to them.

Holtz moved onto her side and propped up against her pillow with her chin in her hand, content to slow her breathing to Erin’s mellow pace and just _watch_ her lover sleep.

Time stretched between them and Holtz didn’t realize how long she’d been watching, trying to memorize every detail of Erin’s face just in case something happened and they couldn’t stay like this. She had so many memories from twelve years ago, but those were starting to bleed at the seams, even slightly, and so she needed to make new ones. She had to create a space for the broken tapestry of space and time, the odds of a universe that had seemed so content to be stacked against them, and make space for Erin there. Even if she could only house the perfection of these moments in a small space for a temporary basis, she’d be content to resurrect them on a rainy day for the rest of her life.

But this didn’t feel like ‘for now,’ like it had back in Hawaii.

It didn’t feel like a clock was ticking and looming over their heads, counting down to the time when they’d inevitably have to leave the island and go their separate ways. Her bleary eyes adjusted to take in the red numbers on the clock that was positioned precariously on the edge of her bedside table and she noticed that it was nearly afternoon; they’d spent all day and all night making love, fucking, and then making love again. Sleep hadn’t been long, as it had been past sunrise and heading toward morning when they’d finally succumbed to sleep. While it hadn’t been a long bout of sleep, it had been heavy, numbing her limbs and completely shutting down her system for perhaps the first time in the roboticist’s entire life, because now she was _home_ even though she was still in her New York studio and that wasn’t going to last forever, but they’d figure it out. The excuses had worn thin, had frayed at the edges, and maybe they were tap-dancing on the edge of something that was truly inevitable, but Holtzmann had known that the first time she’d gotten the taste of eternity on Erin’s lips back when she was new and young. Back then, she had been so ready to take her future by storm that she would have happily made professions that neither would have been able to endure on those sandy beaches.

And maybe it would have destroyed them both.

Now, the light that crept in the window felt like renewal, like rebirth, and Holtz looked over Erin’s sleeping, prone body again and knew she couldn’t leave her like that any longer. They’d have time for sleep later.

Even if it meant they had to quit their lives first, at least they’d have each other.

Wasn’t love meant to be a little reckless from time to time?

The professor rolled onto her back, flat and Holtz groaned softly when she saw long, lean legs shifting under the thin sheet that covered their naked bodies. Her fingers grasped the cotton fabric and pulled, exposing Erin’s chest in a tentative downward drag, a slow reveal. The roboticist’s mouth watered when dusky nipples tightened due to the sudden introduction of chill in the air that wasn’t overbearing, not when they’d spent so many hours sweaty and stuck together. As the sheet fell over Erin’s hips, the blonde licked her lips and moved to the redhead’s side, kissing down her collarbones with barely-there affection, just a brush of lips against skin that had cooled, but still retained a hint of salt. Her tongue flickered between Erin’s breasts and trailed down a flat stomach, over the older woman’s belly button, and then she took the sheet away completely, nestling her slim, pale figure between her lover’s thighs.

It'd be an excellent way to wake up, Holtz thought as she kissed up Erin’s thigh and watched her start to stir, saw those hips bucking gently as she sought out more contact even in her unconscious state. A moan left the older woman and kiss-bruised lips fell open in a silent moan, and the blonde was left to wonder as she absorbed the image of Erin, still lightly dozing, in a state of rapture when they’d barely begun. Was she dreaming of her? Of them? She’d wasted so much of her life dreaming of Erin because she couldn’t have her, even since she’d gotten to New York City, and it’d felt like betrayal whenever she woke up in a cold sweat with a throbbing pulse between her legs that ached as her hands balled into fists because they couldn’t touch.

The first touch of her mouth to Erin’s sex was gentle, another brush of flesh against flesh that lacked any rougher contact as all the desperation-laced need had fallen by the wayside in the hours before. It was reverent, a touch that was meant to worship just like the softer kisses they shared when they snuggled against the sheets that smelled like both women and basked in the afterglow. A thought struck Holtz and settled low in her belly, one that sparked a fresh wave of her own arousal, and it was wondrous how she could still _want_ so much when she’d gotten more than her fill, arguably more sex than she’d had in one ‘session’ her entire life, but that was just the professor’s sacred, tremendous effect on her body, one that crept to the fathoms of her soul.

Erin was still so _wet_.

Holtzmann groaned against her and lapped a little harder, tracing her tongue between drenched folds and drawing the sweet taste of her lover into her mouth, closing her eyes to stave off too many noises and suspend herself in the quiet of their shared space, the stillness around them as Erin stirred again, surely close to waking as Holtz’s clever tongue skirted over her clit and pressed down, wanting to feel the throb of alertness, the early signs of destruction on the horizon because it was glorious proof that Erin _needed_ her, and needed this. Needed them. When Holtz looked up her lover’s body, she was met with cloudy blue eyes that were fogged with slumber and then darkened with arousal when she tossed a dimpled smile upwards, lifted her head ever so slightly, and let Erin see the glisten of her own wetness on the blonde’s lips.

“Holtzmann,” Erin groaned, her head falling back against the pillows. Her voice was raspy, overworked and worn out, and the blonde swore she’d never sounded sexier.

Well, maybe not _never_. Erin screaming her name with abandon as fingernails sank into her shoulders when the blonde wrenched another orgasm – one Erin said wasn’t possible for her to achieve – from the professor’s body was a treasured joy.

“I’d say that’s my name and maybe don’t wear it out, but…”

The blonde offered a slow wink, deciding that a single sentence was long enough – too long, probably – to keep her mouth away from Erin. She watched her lover grip the discarded sheet, balling the thin material into her strong fists and arch up, but hands were immediately there to claim her, to bring her back into the mattress, down to earth as Holtz’s tongue continued tracing patterns and licking slow, flat stripes along overheated, sensitive flesh. Unconsciously, a moan escaped the roboticist’s mouth as she dipped her tongue inside, just the tip, warming through the strong muscle before she pushed in, gripping Erin’s hips a little harder so she could pull the redhead closer.

Erin’s legs fell on either side of her head, and the professor assisted the movement by placing her legs over Holtz’s shoulders and bucking closer, her body rejuvenated as she shook free the last traces of sleep. When slim fingers tangled in the mess of blonde hair and blunt nails scraped her scalp before tugging, a reflex that belied the older woman’s pleasure, Holtz groaned again and started moving her tongue faster, harder, taking her lover to the brink before she withdrew and sucked Erin’s clit into her mouth. A brief skim of teeth, and Erin’s hips jolted to the moon. The climax took her by surprise, and a warm gush of fluids left her, falling into Holtz’s mouth as she happily cleaned up the moderate mess; neither had much care for the state of Holtz’s bed after the night they’d shared, but greed ran heavily in the roboticist’s veins, and where Erin was concerned, she could never get enough.

Instead of slumping back, tired, like the blonde expected, Erin pulled her up to her mouth by the hair, eager and determined for a bruising exchange, a clash of the titans with lips and tongues and teeth tangling and clinking against each other. It was hot and needy, the professor seeming to want little else but to taste the efforts of Holtzmann’s wake-up call on her younger lover’s mouth. That was the thought that greeted Holtz next as she rocked her hips into Erin, body seeking out heat and skin and whatever closeness she could reach in this bubble of intimacy that they were rebuilding, though it seemed it hadn’t ever dissipated. Rather, it grew into a palpable force that enslaved them.

Then, Holtz hit her back with a rough exhale as the breath was temporarily knocked from her lungs while Erin took her place on top, fixing the younger woman with a wicked grin that made her look every bit the vixen. Holtz swallowed hard, blue eyes darkened and pupils blown as her body _shuddered_ in response, and Erin had barely touched her yet.

Holtzmann didn’t have to wait long.

Before she knew it, those same fingers that held a death grip on the sheets before were inside her – two at first, then three – and she whimpered at the contact, at the stretch. Erin knew her body so well, like she’d dedicated her life to practicing how to wring pleasure from her beyond the highest heights she’d ever expected to know. It was too good and terrifying how someone could crawl beneath her skin and leech onto her veins, love her so sweetly, unravel her so completely, and yet she continued to give just in case she had more to offer.

“Don’t hold back,” Erin growled against her throat, and this was a new side to her usually rigid professor, one that made her shiver and nod furiously as her head thrashed on the pillow beneath.

“ _You_ don’t hold back,” Holtz challenged. Erin had shown cracks, usually when Holtz took control and staked her claim, of a wilder side. She’d seen some of that abandon years ago, in Hawaii, the precision in which she was able to get Holtzmann to bend, but the power exchange now between them was a battle of fire and lightning.

The next drive of Erin’s fingers was harder than the last and so deep that Holtz felt impossibly full and keened, low whimpers and soft gasps leaving her in succession as the redhead started a relentless pace. It was unforgiving, full of attentive rigor and dominance and maybe this was something _new_ , something unique to their connection, something only Holtz brought out in her lover.

The thought alone was intoxicating, and Holtz’s thighs splayed open lewdly. Erin’s free hand gripped one hard enough to bruise, keeping her open, using her as a prop as she drove her fingers harder, gritting her teeth against the exertion in her forearm as she curled her fingers against the spot that made Holtz twitch and tremble. Soon, her walls would come crumbling down; they both knew it, knew all the signs, and knew this dance by heart.

“Er—Er, I’m close, baby,” Holtz whimpered, and Erin smirked.

Smirked.

“I know,” she replied softly, her tone casual, unrushed.

Her thrusts slowed to a glacial pace.

Holtz bit down on her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

“Fuck, _Erin_.”

Just as quickly as she felt her release approaching, she felt it slip away and fizzle with the sands of time as her lover started over; she broke her apart and rebuilt from scratch, back to the drawing board for a new foundation.

The results were sure to be catastrophic.

Each inward thrust housed a twitch of the professor’s fingers, a glide of padded tips against the top of her walls, scissoring motions that stroked her sides, and Holtz could feel herself getting wetter and wetter, almost to an embarrassing degree. She might have been more self-conscious if it wasn’t Erin, but she would tear her soul apart for this woman, and had. What was a little more?

“You just feel so _good_ , I never want to stop.”

Erin’s raspy purr in her ear caused another involuntary shudder from the blonde, which in turn caused her to further impale herself on her lover’s fingers. They drove deeper, and she saw the smile on the professor’s face as she obviously loved _that_ reaction, and then she sped up again.

The release built in the depths of her belly and caught fire in the space between her hip bones.

Her muscles twitched and her brow furrowed hard.

Her vision blurred.

She could taste it, that sweet longing right at the edge of her tongue as she reached out to take it, and then she was lost.

Erin’s arms – deceptively strong, feminine, smooth – wrapped around her and lowered her back to the bed and it was then and only then that Holtz realized that she must have rocketed upward to a nearly seated position with the intensity of her orgasm. The redhead coquettishly licked her fingers clean in an obscene gesture that suited the juxtaposition of propriety that the roboticist knew was laced with something hungrier, a succubus in its pure carnality, and she was happy to be consumed by it forever.

Afterward, they were still.

“I’m hungry.” Holtz broke the silence and Erin laughed against her shoulder.

“You didn’t have breakfast?”

“Mm, well if you’ll give me a second helping, I could be convinced to hang it up until lunch.”

Fingertips wiggled in the redhead’s direction, tickling her ribs gently until Erin squirmed and groaned her body’s protest as she shifted and realized how sore her muscles really were.

“You realize it’s nearly lunch, right?”

“No wonder I’m starving.”

“I can order pizza?”

Holtz propped on her stomach, her chin in her hands and eyes bright.

“Erin Gilbert, are you _offering_ to order us pizza, naked, in bed?”

The professor blushed under the scrutiny and attention of the blonde’s stare, then nodded.

“How are you so perfect?”

“I’m not that perfect, Holtz.”

“You are to me,” the roboticist said simply, then placed a small, short kiss on the rounded point of Erin’s nose – a feature she adored, out of many adored features – and stretched. “If you’re going to handle pizza, I should at least start some coffee for us.”

“Pizza and coffee, Holtz?”

“Only proper counterpart to pizza is beer, and I didn’t strike you for ‘beer at one o’clock’ type, Professor.”

“I could go for coffee,” Erin replied, her eyes shamelessly tracing all over Holtz’s nude backside as she jumped out of bed and rummaged through her drawers for a pair of baggy sweats and an ancient Carnegie Mellon hoodie that she tugged over her nude frame while Erin wrapped herself, toga-style, in the sheet and found her phone in her purse that was across the room.

“Perks of having a studio,” Holtz called from the kitchen space. “I don’t ever have to be far from you.”

“It is really small, Holtzmann. Are you comfortable here?”

“My place in D.C. is bigger,” the roboticist replied as she put grounds in a coffee filter and started the brew cycle. “But this is fine for now. It has been fine.”

Neither one of them wanted to think about D.C.

Not when things were still new and they could taste each other on their lips.

“Pineapple, right? Anything else?”

“Hawaiian. Pineapple and cheese. Pineapple and black olives. Pineapple,” Holtz said, shrugging her slim shoulders. “Whatever makes you happy. I’d even do something else, for you.”

“I’m fine with sweet and salty,” Erin responded with a playful wink.

Erin ordered pizza and Holtzmann prepared coffee, and it was remarkable to both women how easy it was to settle into a routine. Eventually, their easy banter over coffee at Holtz’s kitchen island turned into a need for both to freshen up, and both women took turns in the bathroom washing their face and whatever else needed tending at the moment.

A knock on the door sounded, and Erin didn’t even care that she was still wearing her sheet toga when she went to answer it. Pizza delivery guys in New York City had probably seen worse, and she was fully covered.

“I’ll get that,” she said, grabbing a few bills out of her wallet and heading toward the door. Erin unhooked the chain and slid the deadbolt aside, then swung the door open and was met with a familiar face that made her heart sink.

“Do you have enough for the tip, too, ‘cause I can…”

“Holtzmann,” Erin said, and her words were unsteady.

“What’s up, babe?”

Holtz joined her shortly, and Erin wished she hadn’t when she felt the air change around them. Holtz was cradling a coffee mug in her hands, her face fresh as the morning, and the three women exchanged looks, but nobody said a word.

It would have been comical if it hadn’t been something that had been pulled from Erin’s worst nightmares.

“Casey, what are… what are you doing here?”

Holtz rubbed the back of her neck, and Erin wished she felt less shame because they’d broken up. Holtzmann had told her they’d broken up.

“I came to talk to you. To, um, to try to win you back or something, but I guess that’s probably a dumb idea, isn’t it?”

“I’m gonna go get dressed,” Erin said, and Holtz placed a hand on her arm before shooting her a look that held a thousand apologies. “No, it’s fine, you two should talk. She came all this way.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Holtz said, her words firm.

“I probably shouldn’t stay,” she attempted.

“I’ll go,” Casey decided. “I’m only in town for a night. I’d hoped it’d be all I needed.”

Erin watched Holtz fight her loyalty and propriety all at once.

“Can you stay here for a few minutes? There’s a coffee shop next door. I won’t be long.”

“Whatever you need,” Erin said, wanting to be supportive even if her heart was breaking just a little at the thought of Holtz leaving.

“I won’t be long,” Holtz said, and Erin expected her to run off without any further preamble, without any affectionate goodbye, but the blonde pressed their lips together briefly and handed Erin her coffee mug before grabbing a jacket and kicking her feet into some slip-on sneakers, then retreating down the hallway with Casey.

Erin closed the door and pushed her head back, exhaling a sigh.

Nothing worth having ever came easily.


	10. Nothing's Gonna Change My World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right - you guys rock for being so patient about these updates. I wish I could say they'll continue to come along quickly, but I'm getting ready to start the summer season at my place of employment which basically means I'll be getting my ass kicked on a regular and hopefully bringing in piles of cash. I won't keep you suspended long, however, and there's probably only a few chapters left of this bad boy. I'm thinking three or four to round things out. But first, the resolution of things with Casey because yes, it's not gonna be super dramatic but I couldn't just leave her like that, all heartbroken and shit, without some kind of resolution. I do hope you guys enjoy. Maybe this chapter will set your hearts at ease - the angst is over. <3

Though she was covered from head to toe, Holtzmann had seldom felt more naked and vulnerable than she did once she was seated across from Casey at the coffee shop near her building. The two women had been relatively silent on the walk down, spent the brief elevator ride on separate corners, stealing a glance here and there – Casey’s were filled with confusion and longing, and Holtzmann’s resonated with guilt.

She tried to reconcile the guilt as it weighed, heavily, in the pit of her stomach when they approached the counter to order drinks. The roboticist thought of the coffee she’d left upstairs, with Erin, and ordered black coffee that she intended to ruin with flavored creamer. Casey tried to pay, and when she’d attempted to insist she take the tab onto her own shoulders, Holtz realized that she’d left her wallet upstairs in her studio and locked blue eyes onto the floor with shame instead of on the kindly barista who was obviously just as awkward watching the situation as she was living in it.

“It’s fine, Holtzmann,” Casey assured her, her voice colder than its usual warmth but still lacking in as much chill as the blonde knew she deserved. Their break-up hadn’t been some tragic affair – really, it was brief – but she’d lacked in explanations and she hadn’t even had the guts to do it in person, which was certainly less than the brunette deserved. Casey had never been the type to require everything be wrapped up neat and tidy with a bright red bow, but Holtz imagined that the ‘what if’s’ had gotten to her when she’d been trying to work through a resolution in her head. And then, there was the subject of their apartment – Casey would obviously be set to move out, they’d discussed that on the phone, but Holtz hadn’t given her any sort of rigorous time limits since she wouldn’t even be returning to D.C. until her work at Columbia was finished. Holtz would have been inclined to move, but she’d moved her ex-fiancee into the space that had been hers for years, and they intended to get a bigger place together once they were married, but that was no longer on the agenda.

“It’s not fine,” the roboticist mumbled. “I’m a jerk. Can’t you yell at me or something? Tell me how awful I am?”

The calm persona that her ex presented was almost alarming, but she knew Casey was slow to anger, and even slower to making a show in public. She was reserved, and it was only in those glassy green eyes that Holtzmann saw the pain cracking them every time they looked at each other and their gaze lingered, lacking every bit of spark it used to when they had been together, and happy, because they had been _incredibly_ happy. The break-up hadn’t been so much about them not working together, because they _did_ , but rather the fact that Holtz knew she couldn’t belong to someone forever when she knew she wanted to be with someone else. And that was worse, somehow.

“Do you want me to tell you you’re awful?” Casey asked the question with a furrowed brow, one marked with confusion as they stepped away from the counter and picked a seat in a quiet corner by the window. Holtz forced herself to focus on the situation instead of counting the cars as they sped by, the busy traffic of New York City streets that just never stopped, but she owed this resolution to Casey. She owed her much more than a halfway decent cup of coffee and an apology, but she hadn’t even been able to pay for the coffee because her mind had been on… well, nothing appropriate for _this_ situation, that was for damn sure.

“I mean, I don’t think I could feel worse than I feel right now,” Holtz said, staring into the black abyss of steaming liquid in her paper cup. “But whatever you need to say, you can say it. I understand.”

“I didn’t travel all this way to make you feel like a shitty person,” Casey said simply. “At first, I thought I just wanted answers because okay, breaking up with someone over the phone when you’ve been together so long and were planning on getting married isn’t really the nicest thing you could do. Then, I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to convince you to change your mind because I _love_ you, but I think that’s… I think that’s out, isn’t it?”

Blue eyes snapped up, watering as soon as they met a pair they used to love.

Why couldn’t love be easier?

“I am _so_ sorry,” Holtz said.

“It’s okay,” Casey said, nodding and fighting back tears of her own. She cleared her throat and wrapped long, elegant fingers around her own cup and took a sip of her latte. “Things change. People change. And, I mean, in this situation I guess people stay the same. You’ve always loved her, haven’t you?”

“Since the first day I met her, I think. Does that sound stupid?”

“No, it doesn’t. I’ve done the whole ‘love at first sight’ thing before,” Casey said, giving her a wink even as tears stung her eyes. Holtz admired so much about the woman across from her, because there really was so much to love and appreciate; her resolve and strength carried through in every movement, every second of this awful conversation, and the elegance with which she handled herself was so much more than the roboticist thought she deserved. She couldn’t help her feelings for Erin, but she should have probably been a little gentler with Casey’s heart. “I think she’s always loved you, too. I saw the way she looked at you, that first time we met around Christmas.”

“I didn’t know,” Holtz returned, and it was honest even if it was simple.

“I know,” Casey said, reaching across the table to pat Holtz’s hand. “Everything happens for a reason. There’s no use beating yourself up for loving someone. Love is supposed to be this awesome, incredible thing.”

“Something amazing – the _right_ something – is gonna come your way,” Holtz said, flipping the palm of her hand and running her fingertips along Casey’s, almost threading them through before she realized that her easy method of clinging to calm that she had defaulted on for so long now was no longer her comfort to take. And she wasn’t the one in need of comfort, anyway. “That’s not just some line. You’re awesome.”

“It’s gonna be hard to find someone to knock you out of the running for best person who’s ever loved me,” Casey sighed, and Holtz knew it wasn’t intended to make her feel guilty. Casey had always been good at giving her earnest – albeit sometimes peculiar – compliments that made her heart sing. This was just another one of those, even if the timing was wrong. “She exists, though. Somewhere.”

“She does,” Holtz said, running her thumb around the rim of the cup before she picked it up and took another sip now that the liquid inside was less likely to burn her mouth. “And I hope we can still be friendly, even if we can’t be friends for a while.”

“I’d like that,” Casey said with a smile.

Silence permeated their space before the curator cleared the air again, and Holtz was grateful for her being so good about carrying the conversation – the harder topics, especially – because she didn’t dare.

“So, I can get my stuff out of the apartment by the end of the month,” Casey replied. “I’ve got a friend who says I can crash with him until I find a more permanent spot.”

“I’ve got a few more months here. You can take your time. Really,” Holtz said, partially because she hated that she was uprooting someone’s life and because she still didn’t know where _she_ would be in a few months. Her life was in D.C. NASA was in D.C. But Erin was in New York, and Columbia wasn’t a terrible opportunity for her, job-wise. She liked teaching more than she’d initially thought she would, she loved her students, and she loved knowing that she was partially to blame for the future engineers, astronauts, and scientists of tomorrow. “I don’t want to make things more difficult for you, Case.”

“I can’t stay there,” she said simply, and her tone was clipped and soft and it made Holtz’s heart stutter like a failing engine because she knew _why_. “But I appreciate it. Are you, um, are you gonna come back to D.C. for a while, or are you thinking of moving here?”

“Honestly, we haven’t talked about it. This is so… new. Really new.”

 _It just happened last night_.

That’s what she wanted to say, but the blonde wasn’t the type to rub salts in someone’s wounds, let alone in wounds she had caused.

“Well, you seem happy. That’s all I wanted for you, Holtz. Granted, I wanted to be the one doing it, but life doesn’t always give you what you want.”

“Thank you,” Holtz said, knowing that she was lucky to have someone who loved her enough to be civil, to be understanding even when she’d probably stomped all over Casey’s heart.

“You should probably get heading back soon, huh?”

Casey’s head tilted upward, back toward the direction of Holtz’s studio, and the blonde nodded.

“Can we talk sometime? Just talk. When things are… when they’re better.”

“I’d like that.”

“Thank you for the coffee,” Holtz said, releasing Casey’s hand and not even knowing how long she’d been holding it anymore. She felt the sands of time slip through her fingers because she had been so happy with the brunette for so long, and she knew Casey could have made her happy forever, but Erin had her heart and soul wrapped around her little finger and wasn’t that just the rub of it all sometimes?

“You tell her to be good to you. To not let you go, ‘cause if she does, I’m around.”

Holtz smirked because it was the most threatening she imagined Casey could ever be, and even that fell flat and landed somewhere within the proximity of playful instead. A curve tilted those full lips and Casey blinked back tears with a shuddering sigh before Holtz stood up and held out her arms, a bit awkwardly, as if to request a hug that she knew the brunette had every right to deny. Casey stood and allowed the roboticist to envelope her, to breathe her in one last time while she did the same, and their eyes were wet when they pulled back. Holtz grabbed her coffee and kissed the brunette’s cheek before she pulled away, leaving one hand on the curator’s shoulder and giving her a dimpled half-grin.

“Be good to yourself, okay?”

“I will. I promise.”

Holtz gave her one last glance and a small wave, and then headed back to her apartment, still feeling the weight of each step as she departed.

 

* * *

 

 

She slid her key into the lock and was immediately greeted with a very tense looking Erin Gilbert seated on her couch, staring at the foot, jostling one leg up and down.

Erin had dressed in one of Holtz’s oversized t-shirts that had seen much better days and a pair of boxer shorts, and even though the clothing didn’t suit her tweed-wearing, buttoned-up professor, the look was endearing. The redhead still had rumpled sex hair, but her face was clear and clean as the morning. There were deep lines around her mouth from where she pursed her lips, a frown in her brow, a deep-set concentration in her eyes. She barely looked up when Holtz entered her studio and shut the door behind her.

“Hey, I’m back,” she breathed, because the relief of the moment had finally hit her.

Erin snapped up, and the red rings around the redhead’s eyes told Holtz that she had been crying. For how long, she didn’t know. The why was also unfamiliar, but she thought she would gently press to see what she could ascertain from the older woman.

“Er… you all right? I wasn’t gone that long, was I?”

“I’m glad you’re back,” Erin said, her voice shaky and soft. Holtz moved over to the couch, tucked her legs underneath her and reached out to take Erin in her arms, hoping the redhead would rest and lay against her shoulder, ease into the comfort of them being free like Holtz was trying to cling to with an iron fist even though what had started as a light, sleepy morning that was perfect for making love and closing old wounds had turned heavy.

“Everything’s good, you know. I’m exactly where I want to be, so don’t you fret about it.”

Holtz pressed a soft kiss against Erin’s forehead, brushed her bangs aside and let her lips linger as Erin’s breathing steadied.

“What if you realize later that you’ve made a horrible mistake? She seems amazing, and I could see how much you loved her… and maybe you still do. Feelings don’t just dissipate overnight. They never did for me, and you love so hard, I don’t know how they possibly could for you.”

Holtz pulled back and adjusted so she could look into Erin’s eyes while she allowed her brain to release the simplest, most honest answer she could muster.

“It’s always been you, Erin.”

Holtz felt Erin’s sigh more than she heard it, but it resonated in her bones.

“I didn’t expect to meet my soulmate in Hawaii on vacation because some straight girl had shunned me. I didn’t expect to build my foundation on you, but you taught me everything I needed to know about love and beyond that, you taught me about the kind of love I really wanted,” she explained. “Yours. The way you love me. That’s all I need.”

“I thought for the longest time that I was deluding myself,” Erin said, sniffling as she curled back into Holtzmann’s body, adjusting and reveling in the naturally perfect fit, like puzzle pieces destined to collide. “Especially when I saw you at Columbia. You’d grown so much, and you’d changed… but there was so much of the you I met in Hawaii that was still there, and I guess I was hoping maybe those parts still cared for me, but it was all so messy.”

A dimpled smile struck Erin like lightning, and she felt it all the way to her toes. Her face flushed because that kind of smile housed pure electricity, a deeper meaning than any other smile that had been cast in her direction during her moderate lifetime.

“Was messy,” Holtz suggested. “Isn’t anymore.”

“It still seems too good to be true. Don’t you think?”

“Nah,” Holtz said, stretching out the vowel comedically and sweeping a hand through the hair as if she was trying to swat the idea aside. The professor chuckled in her lover’s arms, because only the roboticist could make such a difficult moment light as air in seconds. “We’ll figure the rest of it out as we go, and maybe there will be some mess, but whatever.”

“Whatever,” Erin sighed. “Is that your professional opinion? Hypothesis proven.”

“Sure,” Holtz replied. “Why make it complicated when I finally have you back? We can make it complicated later when we’re bored or something and want things to stress about so we can have all kinds of hot make-up sex.”

Erin lightly punched her in the arm.

“Don’t you dare,” she chuckled.

“Whaaaat? I mean, you wouldn’t necessarily _know_ that was my reason for picking fights. Gotta keep it interesting, Gilbert,” Holtz said, grinning in a wicked way that made the physicist’s insides burn. “We’re in a relationship now. It’s not gonna be naked tickle fights and shower sex all the time.”

“We’ve never had a naked tickle fight.”

“Yet. We haven’t done that _yet_ ,” Holtz corrected her, then leaned down to peck her lover’s lips. “And I mean, we _are_ in a relationship now, aren’t we?”

“Unless you’re having second thoughts.”

“Oh my God, shut up,” Holtz sighed dramatically and pressed her lips to Erin’s, relaxing into the contact immediately as she poured herself into the physicist. There was nothing stopping them anymore, no obstacles in the way of what seemed like a guaranteed trajectory from the start, and maybe they still had so far to go, but they at least knew where they were heading and wanted to take these steps together.

Erin tangled her elegant digits in blonde hair and tugged at the roots, causing Holtz to groan against her mouth as hips stuttered into a staggered motion as their bodies fell against each other horizontally on the couch. The redhead’s legs wrapped around a slim waist and pulled the roboticist close, and Holtz kissed down Erin’s neck as her hips started moving in a steady rocking motion of their own accord, longing to find that perfect spot for optimal closeness. The pressure on the back of Holtz’s head that cradled her made her groan against her lover’s racing pulse and Erin responded in kind, tightening her legs and pushing upward so the blonde could feel heat that was building between the professor’s thighs. It was never that far from a roaring fire whenever their bodies got together, and not even gravity itself was a strong enough force to keep them apart.

The universe had tried and ultimately, they’d won out.

Hands slid under Holtz’s shirt, caressing her back and the lean, sculpted muscles that ran all the way down the curve of her spine. Fingernails followed suit, leaving crisp half-moon marks in the soft, pale flesh.

Lust rumbled between them.

Holtz’s stomach followed.

“Was that your… stomach?” Erin looked amused and raised an eyebrow while she looked at her lover, whose cheeks darkened with the hint of a blush.

“Say, did that pizza ever show up? I’m wicked starved,” the blonde quipped, the moment passing between them with a breezy, shared smile.

“On the counter,” Erin said, gesturing toward the kitchen. “But when you’re properly nourished, I’ve got _plans_ for you.”

Holtz replied with a cheesy wink and a two-fingered salute.

“Yes, ma’am.”


	11. Full Circle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, what a ride. This baby made it to almost 50,000 words which is kind of huge. I'm so glad you guys have come on this journey with me, and special thanks to you who have been there since the beginning when this was just intended to be a 4-parter with lots of porn. Holtzbert really have come a long way, haven't they? I appreciate each and every one of you, those of you who are readers off in the distance and those of you who have left comments. It really does give me such muse to know my work is appreciated and that I have a home here with you guys in this awesome fandom. 
> 
> If you'd like to keep up to date with me and stuff I'm working on, please follow me on tumblr @thegadgetsandgizmos. I'd love to interact with you there as well - this is not the end, I promise. Maybe for this series, but there's always more to come. I can't stay away long. Without further ado, our finale. Buckle up, kids.

After the quiet came the storm.

It was moderate, just a rush of thunder that swept both women away on a wave of trepidation as the sound boomed around them, roaring through their eardrums and setting their blood aflame. The moment they’d been wanting to avoid was upon them, and Erin knew they were – again – at a crossroads. Holtzmann’s home was in D.C., but Erin had built a home in New York. She was tenured, she had a career, she had stability and she had Abby and she couldn’t bring herself to leave all that behind. Likewise, she’d met the charming blonde when she was a ambitious co-ed who wanted nothing more than to build robots in space, and through the years that had parted them, Holtz had managed to succeed in making all her own dreams come true.

Which meant their days were numbered.

The aerospace engineering program at Columbia hadn’t been renewed, not in a manner of speaking, though Erin knew through the academic grapevine that Holtzmann had made enough of an impression that skewed positive on both the staff and students that she could extend her contract if she so chose. It would mean leaving NASA, most likely, unless she wanted to split her year and deal with a wicked commute and kiss stability goodbye. Erin knew she could provide a home for them, in the Brownstone she purchased, and would task herself with aspects of domesticity that had never come naturally, but she’d bend for Holtz if she wanted to change her life and turn it into a powder keg at the older woman’s expense; if she wanted to risk that much to keep them together, Erin knew it was the least she could do. GISS would find another teacher, if Holtz wanted to return to her old life, because it was a damn good position for someone with similar aspirations who maybe hadn’t made it all the way to NASA’s doorstep.

Since Holtz no longer had her studio that had been furnished as part of her contract by the college, and they were still up in the air – increasingly so, as each day passed – they’d taken to setting up residence in Erin’s home. The professor was constantly surprised at how easily Holtzmann fit into her space. The roboticist traveled light, mostly because her move was never meant to be permanent, and also because she didn’t house much in the way of worldly possessions. She told Erin that she’d lived out of a laboratory at Carnegie Mellon for an entire semester because she hated dorm life and ‘her babies’ needed supervision. Erin didn’t have to ask whether she was referring to robots because she just _knew_. Though the final months of the school year had been difficult in a way that any amount of limited time or deadline approaching became difficult as one became away of the passing of sand in an hourglass, Erin had been grateful for the time spent with the blonde where they could be themselves because it gave her an opportunity to really learn about her lover, take her apart and figure out what made her tick after twelve years and discover that while she had known the blonde before, she hadn’t really had that much in the way of opportunity to memorize more than just her body and aspects of a growing sexuality before, when they’d spent their days and nights in paradise.

It was morning, a week after school had finished for the summer, and Holtz was up early. Erin could hear her clattering around in the kitchen and smelled an assortment of sweet and savory scents that wafted on the air and slid into the bedroom, inviting her to wake. The professor pulled the sheets around her nude figure and stayed in the residual warmth of where the blonde had slept curled next to her for a moment longer before she slid into her robe and padded toward the kitchen. Holtz was flipping pancakes in a skillet like some sort of culinary master chef, and the smirk that colored the professor’s still sleepy features was nothing short of impressed.

“Is there anything you _can’t_ do?”

Holtz turned and met the older woman with a cheeky, dimpled grin.

“I’ve always been terrible at water skiing. Never got the hang of it. I do fine on snow,” she commented with a shrug before she went back to adding new, fluffy cakes to an ever-building stack.

“Are you intending to feed an army?” Erin gestured at the sizeable stack that seemed to be just a work in progress as Holtz ladled more batter into the skillet and let it cook while she attended to another skillet full of scrambled eggs that seemed to be mixed with an assortment of sautéed vegetables.

“Nah, just us. I worked up an appetite last night.”

“You always have an appetite, regardless of what we do the night before. I don’t know where you put it all.”

“You know where I put things last night,” Holtz winked over her shoulder, and Erin had to laugh at how _awful_ the double entendre was, because cheesy sexuality and flirtatious banter was her young lover’s forte. That, and those dreadful malaphors that she never got right, to the point where Erin wondered if she just uttered them to be amusing at this stage in the game. With Holtzmann, it was hard to tell as she tended to walk a fine line right in the middle of serious or deadpan snark and side-splitting humor that blended seamlessly with these rare, earnest moments that were so breathtaking Erin could feel her heart swelling in her chest at the mere thought of them.

“Totally different things, Holtzmann.”

“Tomato, patahto.”

“And those are two entirely different vegetables,” Erin said softly. “Though a tomato is technically a fruit, but I’m sure you know that.”

“Yup. I’m well versed in a variety of food-stuffs,” the blonde said, then paused after she added two more pancakes to a wobbling stack. “How many cakes did you want? Four? Five?”

“Five? Three, maybe.”

“Five!” Holtz cheered and started humming and wiggling her hips as she rummaged for plates, which she retrieved along with silverware, jam, chocolate syrup, frosting, sprinkles, whipped cream and the classic maple syrup. “You have so many sweet options, Gilbert, I’m surprised.”

“Why? Do I not read like I’d have a sweet tooth?”

“You read like you eat a plain, non-fat yogurt before work and crush a banana at lunch time when you’re feeling peckish. Lucky you’ve got me to take care of you, huh?”

Erin cradled a warm coffee mug that Holtz put in front of her a few moments later as she went about building one pancake castle that _had_ to be hers, given its structure that resembled a dessert Napoleon with layers of jam and frosting interspersed between each cake before it was ultimately covered in whipped cream and sprinkles, then drizzled with syrup and chocolate sauce.

“You’re going to have such a sugar crash,” Erin said with a soft chuckle because her lover’s enthusiasm was probably one of her favorite features, one of the best parts of the blonde’s sunny disposition that seemed impervious to any and all curve balls the universe tried to throw at them now that they were finally together.

“Then we have a midday nap and you figure out ways to energize me after,” Holtz said with another shrug and an overly emphatic waggle of her expressive eyebrows. “We have time.”

It was the second quantifier in a short period of discussion that led Erin to think maybe Holtz was considering staying on at Columbia and renewing her contract. She had until the end of the month to decide, as the position was hers to keep or discard, but the university did need time to source a potential replacement if need be; it wasn’t typical of a prestigious school like Columbia to do such intensive courting, but Erin knew that Holtz was a real prize, and for more than just her engineering skill. She was one of those people who came into the world and made everyone in it question if they’d ever really seen the sun before, or if it was just apt to become brighter when she was smiling and happy, or cloudy as soon as that smile faded.

Erin wondered whether she should allow the blonde to stay, if she should consider doing something to force her hand in one direction or another, but they’d both experienced how well that had worked for them back in Hawaii when Erin was just trying to play the cards of an older and wiser, more experienced woman who had gotten opportunities to live and experience at least the beginning of her dreams when Holtz was just starting. Now, she was established – they both were – and they were navigating adulthood like any other adults did; tremulous and cautious, but entirely unsure of which way they’d land. Nobody knew what to do as far as adulthood was concerned; it was all guesswork, and sometimes it ended for the better and other times they went back to the drawing board with scrapes and bruises from a misplaced attempt or a broken heart or some mistake they’d made carelessly by putting the trust somewhere it didn’t belong. Erin had done all those things, and not just once. Rather, she’d run the gamut of decisions that maybe didn’t seem like the _worst_ idea at the time, but certainly not the best, either. She second-guessed herself and tried to think she was doing the right thing because she was blessed with a level-head, but sometimes that was more of a curse than anything else because it meant people held high expectations and anticipated she’d perform in one way versus another, and sometimes she didn’t want to dance like a monkey in some stranger’s circus.

“How did you want your pancakes? Holtzmann style?”

“Butter and maple syrup is just fine with me,” Erin said, sipping her coffee and allowing the blonde to prepare her pancakes as requested, even though she scrunched up her forehead and made a face.

“What about a little whipped cream? Or chocolate?”

“How about you save some of that for later, hmm?” Erin winked at her, feeling playful even though her brain was still handling an amalgam of circumstances, none of which seemed particularly pleasant now when she considered that time had once again started ticking against them. Instead, she wanted to focus on what she could control and the fun she could have, the time she _did_ have with the roboticist because she had time.

She had some time, at least.

“I like the way you think. It’ll taste much better on you, I think.”

“You think?”

“I gotta have some resolve, or you’ll just think I’m trying to hump your leg all the time, EG.”

“I kind of like that you do,” Erin mused as she took her plain stack of bountiful pancakes and started cutting into the top layer with a knife and fork. “It’s different than what I’ve experienced before. It’s nice.”

“You deserve everything I have to give,” the blonde said, chewing as politely she could manage despite the giant bite she’d speared on the end of her fork. “You’re amazing, and I’m lucky. I’m lucky to be here.”

 _Here_. The word sounded permanent on the blonde’s lips, and Erin sighed softly because she knew they couldn’t avoid this conversation forever.

“Do you want to stay here? I mean, for the summer, but… after that, you haven’t told me what you want to do.”

“Am I needing to make a decision right now?”

The blonde rubbed the back of her neck and looked nervous. She couldn’t meet Erin’s eyes right away, but the redhead tried not to make things more difficult by craning her neck lower to force eye contact; if Holtz needed time, she’d give her time, but she only had so much to give before they were at a dangerous crossroads where they had to make a difficult decision without much to spare. She was used to being overly prepared, at weighing the costs and options early and having all the charts and data procured so she could be completely informed, so she could be ready, but she knew the roboticist wasn’t the same way, even though she was also drawn to science’s steady, stabilizing hand. They had that in common, but so much of them was different and on opposite sides of a similar spectrum.

“No. No, you don’t,” Erin said, then paused. “But do you know which direction you’re leaning toward?”

Holtz pursed her lips and the smile was painted with sadness, with a flickering of insecurity, of regret as if she already knew what she was going to say, or maybe even how she was going to decide, but didn’t want to say it.

“We’ve handled long-distance before, and we’re stronger now. Aren’t we?”

Erin wasn’t sure about her response, she hadn’t had time to process and collect data, couldn’t be sure because she hadn’t done the legwork to prove or disprove a theory, so she shot from the hip instead and hoped for the best.

“Sure we are, Holtz.”

 

* * *

 

 

August was sweltering, and the airport was hot and muggy even as the air conditioners worked overtime to cool the space. Erin wiped at her forehead with the back of her hand and held onto Holtz’s with the other as they walked through the main entrance and toward the terminals, toward the security checkpoint that would serve as their background for what she knew would be a painful goodbye. It had to be a thousand degrees, but the chill that pulsed through Erin’s veins, the numb feeling of a heart breaking at the seams, was enough to keep her steady and from succumbing to the misery of the heat. They’d been making their way through the heat wave for an entire week, and even the sticky humidity had done nothing to keep them from staying up all night making love to each other like it would be the last time. Even as they were overwhelmed by dense, thick air, Erin wanted to pull Holtzmann closer and dig her fingers deeper inside the blonde’s sex, reach all those spots she wanted to memorize for the months they’d have to spend apart, likely until the holidays when she had her break because neither of them wanted to interfere with the other’s career. Holtz’s breath on her neck caused her internal temperature to rise and her blood to boil, but it was that good kind of heat that made everything else seem less impossible, even though she didn’t know how she’d deal with the first days of autumnal chill without the blonde curled into her side, tucked underneath her chin and peacefully asleep.

Erin had promised to come to D.C. for Thanksgiving, made Holtz promise to have Patty save a spot at her table. Holtz, in turn, was looking forward to Christmas with Abby and Erin in their lifelong tradition that had been cut short the year previously because of Casey’s unexpected visit. They’d made so many promises, and Erin knew that this time separating would be different, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Just because they were solid in who they were, in who they were together as a couple, didn’t mean either of them knew how to go back to lives that had once been so separate and happy forged as a solo track when they were trying to introduce each other to their daily picture of normalcy.

“I can FaceTime you when I get back to my place,” Holtz suggested when she noticed how quiet Erin was being, staring off into space, out of the many windows while they were walking and holding hands. Usually, the professor was a little more effusive, and Holtz had even been cultivating a bit of a playful streak in the older woman, but today she was solid and stoic as stone. “If you want.”

“That’d be nice,” Erin said, her jaw tense and tone terse.

“Uh-huh, sound more excited, would ya?”

“I’m supposed to be _excited_ about you leaving? It’s a thousand times harder than it was last time, and that was twelve years ago.”

“We said we were gonna be adults about this, Er, and I realize how that sounds coming from _me_ , but yunno,” the roboticist said. She gave her lover’s hand a little squeeze and attempted a small smile to maybe spark one in response, but the redhead could barely meet her eyes.

“I know, I know, it’s just…” Erin sighed, her shoulders slouching before she brought their hands up to her lips and kissed Holtz’s, letting her lips linger on the shorter woman’s knuckles as they finally made eye contact. “I’m really going to miss you.”

Holtz cracked a smile even as her eyes welled with tears.

“I’m glad you’re certain about this. You sound very sure of yourself, Gilbert.”

Erin swatted her on the shoulder and they both laughed. It wasn’t as hollow of laughter as they might have initially expected, given the sorrow that filled them both to bursting. Rather, it was a shared moment – a beacon of light amid oncoming darkness that would hopefully keep them with a positive memory of how _good_ they could be until they were reunited.

The line at the checkpoint was long, but not long enough. Two pairs of blue eyes surveyed it as if they were trying to make a calculated estimate of just how long they had to say goodbye, how long was reasonable, and fought the urge to draw it out because that would be more painful.

_Just rip off the band-aid._

“I think there’s a coffee shop on the other side. I don’t sleep well on planes,” Holtzmann said softly, trying to do anything to fill the space where words wouldn’t grow.

“Try to get some rest, though, if you can. It’ll make it easier.”

“I don’t sleep well without you next to me,” the roboticist continued.

“I’ll call you every night, then, see if I can’t help with that somehow.”

Unspoken was the fact that Erin knew she suffered from the same plight.

“I hate the TSA.”

Erin chuckled.

“Could you say that any louder?”

“I could try,” Holtz retorted, sticking her tongue out and enjoying the last moment of humor that they’d share, physically, for what seemed like forever.

“I think I left my toothbrush at your place.”

“What’s with the excuses, love?”

Holtz sighed and shrunk a little at the endearment, at the calm in Erin’s blue eyes because she knew she was just stalling, just trying to take every moment and draw from it like blood from a stone. The line shortened and they both watched the people file through metal detectors and struggle with removing their shoes, heavy sighs erupting from both women as they forced out their last bits of sadness, because they couldn’t fall apart here. They couldn’t fall apart at all, or at least not completely.

“What is the is the wrong call, Er?”

“Then we’ll figure it out down the road. But you’ve always wanted this: NASA, robots in space, and you have friends in D.C. Patty’s basically your family. One day, it might get easier or make more sense to do something different, but we’ll be strong until then, or stronger if it never gets easier and we have to be separate for part of our years.”

“Don’t you think we’ve spent enough time apart?”

Strong hands slid around Erin’s waist, and blue eyes filled with tears, turning them into an impossible shade of blue, one so vivid that the physicist almost didn’t believe such a color existed in the natural world and yet here she was, faced with beauty as it was stained with sorrow. How the two could comingle so nicely sometimes was beyond her, but she trusted her sight and her cracking heart as Holtz took it in her hands even while she prepared to leave the state and travel many, many miles away to a place where they couldn’t exist together.

“What’s a little longer in the grand scheme of things? We know where we belong now. We know our future is together.” Erin kissed Holtz’s forehead, stroked unruly blonde curls that she’d learned were impossible to tame; the mad scientist genetics ran deep, she’d learned, and no man-made product or other natural component could alter something that was meant to be wild.

“So I’ll see you on Thanksgiving?”

“As soon as I’m free for holiday break, I’m all yours,” Erin said softly. “I’ll even get my work done ahead of time so I don’t have to focus on anything but you.”

Holtz crushed her lips to the professor’s, sighing and gasping into the redhead’s mouth when it deepened. Their hands clutched at clothing, Erin’s fingers wrapping around the strap of Holtz’s messenger bag, and they were oblivious to the world around them. Airports were the happiest and saddest place in the world, sometimes, it was always a mixed bag of emotion with arrivals and departures, teary hellos and goodbyes, and they were no different. Holtz drew her thumbs over the fat tear tracks that stained Erin’s face when they pulled back and Erin placed her hand against the side of Holtz’s neck, just wanting to hold her lover for a few more moments.

“Don’t cry, kid. We’ve got this, okay?” Holtz gave the redhead a slow wink, one that burned in numerous ways but didn’t alleviate the longing that was already sinking in. She was trying to be strong for both of them, Erin knew, and tried to honor her sacrifice by putting steel in her spine and doing her best not to completely crumble. “Now, I’m gonna go and let the TSA agents pat down this fine ass, but don’t get jealous, kay?”

“I won’t,” Erin replied, laughing through her tears.

“Good. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Holtz kissed her again, briefly this time, nothing more than a three-second peck that made them both want so much more, but it’d be enough – it would have to be – for the time being, and then she was in line. Erin could see her hand twitching against the handle of her suitcase, the nervous energy coming to a boil, and she knew it was because she was watching. But even so, she couldn’t bring herself to look away.

Once Holtz turned the corner, she’d let the tears fall at her gate, but she’d be out of sight where she couldn’t completely dismantle Erin’s heart.

 

* * *

 

 

“I have a _child_ in the house, you two!!”

Patty’s voice boomed through the bathroom door, and Erin giggled as Holtz tried to cover her mouth even though she loved the sounds her girlfriend made.

“She’s totally distracted with the presents Erin bought her, don’t worry, Pattycakes.”

“A _chemistry_ set? Do you want her blowin’ up my house?”

“You have a really lovely home!”

Holtz shifted her fingers and Erin’s teeth sank into the palm of the roboticist’s hand. It hadn’t been something they’d planned, but halfway through the meal, Holtz’s hands had wandered under the table, nothing too bold at first, but eventually shifting through more welcoming fabric because Erin had worn a dress to Thanksgiving dinner and sliding up smooth, warm thighs to the apex of the professor’s thighs. Erin had been good about disguising what was happening, for the most part, and there was only so far Holtzmann would push when she was seated at the same table with her ‘niece,’ but she did plenty to tease.

“How long you gonna be in there?”

They could hear Patty sigh, obviously defeated, and Holtz smirked.

“We’ll be quick.”

She winked at Erin, thrust her fingers and curled them rapidly against the professor’s front wall which caused her to keen.

“Scratch that, _really_ quick.”

“Nasty,” Patty retorted, but both women could hear the smile in her voice because she was glad they were back together, happy to have Erin at her table, and even happier to see her best friend get the happy ending she deserved.

“You’re the worst,” Erin groaned as she rocked her hips down, trying to get more of Holtz’s fingers, trying to get her lover deeper because sure, it wasn’t a prime location for this kind of behavior, but they were making up for lost time.

“Can I attempt to change your tune, hot stuff?”

“Do your best.”

Erin grit her teeth in a challenge and Holtz doubled her speed, adding a third finger, and shoved the physicist harder against the tiled wall. Erin’s inner muscles clenched around the thicker intrusion and Holtz’s head fell against the crook of her neck; she kissed the spot between Erin’s neck and shoulder, just a gentle brush of her lips at first, and then bit down. Erin keened and bucked her hips forward, inadvertently providing a better angle for deeper penetration, and the blonde chuckled.

“Pretty terrible?”

“Don’t fucking stop.”

“Easy, Gilbert. I wasn’t gonna.”

The noise factor escalated, and instead of muffling her lover’s cries and whimpers with her hand this time, Holtz pressed their lips together in a fiery kiss that ended up with teeth clashing against her swollen bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. It didn’t deter them, if anything, a bit of blood in the water worked to arouse them further and the brief sting of pain made Holtz push Erin closer and closer to what seemed to be utter ruination. They’d spent their first twelve hours together fucking against every surface in Holtz’s apartment, and Erin had been bossy, keen on staking her claim and reminding Holtz that she belonged to her and nobody else. The roboticist hadn’t needed the reminder, but she was happy to feel it for days after Erin had finally finished having her.

These moments, even the frenzied, wild ones made both women realize that they’d never really get enough of each other. No amount of time, not even if they had a thousand years, would be enough.

Erin came against Holtz’s shoulder when she had to tear her mouth away to catch her breath, and loosed a silent scream into the shorter woman’s patchwork blazer.

 

* * *

 

 

“Would you ever want to get married someday?”

In a long list of beautiful sights – Erin had been blessed with beauty in numerous ways, but especially one in particular – she mapped seeing Jillian Holtzmann in all her nude splendor splayed out on her living room floor, illuminated by nothing but twinkle lights and colored ones from their first Christmas tree, one they’d purchased and decorated together as one of the best.

“Do you mean for the second time?”

“Ha, yeah. I keep forgetting that part.”

Erin laughed, because in a way, that marriage hadn’t mattered. Abby called it her ‘starter marriage,’ the one that was meant to teach her what she didn’t actually want, the kind you agree to when age and life gets the best of you and settling seems like the proper course. The physicist propped up on her hip, grateful for the warmth of a roaring fire, though Holtz had been disappointed that Erin had no intention of letting her roast chestnuts while she sang the familiar Christmas song as a gleeful serenade. Deft fingers tucked a strand of hair off the roboticist’s sweaty forehead and she pursed her lips for a moment, deep in thought over the question even though the answer was simple. Easy. She’d known the answer long before she’d met Holtzmann again, but it made even more sense now.

“If I met someone very special, someone to make me sure it would be the _right_ decision this time around, then yes.”

The blonde sputtered a little, brows knit low in a comical expression that made Erin laugh as she nuzzled the younger woman’s skin and ran a hand up and down a taut torso.

“You think I’m special enough to make you say yes?”

Erin stopped her movements entirely because Holtz had those rare moments when she could pull sincerity out of nowhere, earnest moments that stopped her dead in her tracks. It seemed like the perfect moment for a proposal, but she wasn’t ready.

Not because she wouldn’t say yes, but because it wasn’t right. They still lived apart, they had no resolutions for how to fix that, and it was hard enough living without her girlfriend, but living without her fiancée seemed unbearable.

“You are. And I would, but… you aren’t proposing right now, are you?”

The blonde’s sides quivered with laughter.

“No! No, I’m not. You’ll know. _Trust me._ ”

And Erin did trust her, completely.

“Okay, I’m just saying---“

“Oh my God, would you just stop for a second? Stop worrying, cupcake, and kiss me.”

Holtzmann had covered her entire home in mistletoe – every doorway, every nook and cranny, _everywhere_ – but she’d never needed that as an excuse to kiss Erin whenever and however she wanted. Especially when she’d have to leave again, soon.

 

* * *

 

 

Spring in New York City was beautiful, but Erin greeted each morning with a heavy heart when she woke up alone. She did her best to throw herself into her work, which was important considering how seriously she took her job and even though she wanted little more than to be distracted by her precocious lover in every feasible way, she was glad she had the time to devote to her students.

They hadn’t made plans for Spring Break because, as far as Erin knew, Holtz was involved with some ‘project’ and it seemed unlike them to try to make something happen during a time of the year that was so special to them both. She couldn’t fault her girlfriend for having a life and plans of her own, for having a busy, successful career because Holtzmann was doing all the things Erin had hoped she might when their paths crossed for the first time and their fates intertwined. Now, her heart was on the line so it was bound to get a few bumps and bruises along the way; every ounce of hurt was soothed over by love that was amplified by thousands because it was so good, so pure, so _right_ to allow their destinies to rest together as bedfellows. It probably always had been, because even though the pain and the distance, they seemed inevitable.

She’d made plans to meet Abby for lunch, but her heart stopped and her plans were instantly derailed when she opened her front door to see Holtzmann standing there in plaid cut-off shorts that were stitched up in a few spots that looked like the fabric had been blasted by a blowtorch and a fitted crop top that showed abdominal muscles that haunted Erin’s hottest dreams.

Every time she saw the blonde, her breath was ripped from her lungs.

But to see her standing there, unexpectedly, in the flesh?

It was nothing short of a miracle.

“Hey, you.”

“Hey me? Hey, how about _calling_ your girlfriend so you don’t give me a heart attack in my old age by showing up on my doorstep dressed like that?”

“We have a habit of doing this. I thought it was romantic.”

Tears flooded Erin instantly and she almost fell down the steps and into Holtzmann’s arms as the blonde picked her up effortlessly and kissed her as they spun around on the sidewalk. Erin’s hands tangled in the blonde’s mass of curls that had gotten longer and she managed to pull off classically feminine beauty with tomboyish charm perfectly and Erin’s heart ached to look at her, to touch her, to breathe in that scent of motor oil and sandalwood cologne that was spicy and musky and _so_ Holtzmann. She’d missed her, she’d missed everything about her, and there were so many questions, but she pushed them to the back of her mind while they kept kissing. Her tongue entered the blonde’s mouth and the physicist swallowed Holtz’s moan as strong hands gripped her hips, her waist, finding all the spots that she could feel the other woman had dreamt about touching before they broke apart, foreheads touching, gasping as they smiled and cried together.

“What are you _doing_ here?”

Erin’s fingertips traced colorful suspenders, because who even wore suspenders with a crop top, anyway, but her girlfriend?

“Well, you see, my girlfriend practically lives in Columbia where she works and I haven’t seen her since New Year’s, and that’s a _very long time_. Also, it’s spring break,” Holtz mused, her brow arched skyward as if this information was both obvious and underwhelming even though to the redhead, it was everything.

“I know all of that. You had a project, you said.”

“Uh-huh. Super secret acquisitions. I bought plane tickets to take us on an adventure, and I couldn’t very well have you planning every second of our break together when I had very specific plans.”

“Do you wanna come upstairs?”

Heat lingered in Erin’s question and Holtz shook her head as she smiled.

“I’ll come up to help you pack, cupcake, but we’ve got places to be.”

“You’re not taking me to Italy, right? Because that’s--- you’ve got nothing to prove, and I don’t need to…”

“I’m not taking you to Italy, Gilbert. Do you want me to help you pack? It’s quicker with two people. You don’t need that many clothes, anyway.”

“Why? Are we going somewhere tropical?”

“Yes, and also you’re gonna be naked a lot.”

 

* * *

 

 

The plane landed and as soon as they exited, the air was so foreign and familiar that they were overwhelmed.

Holtz had brought her back to the beginning, and they paused when they passed the exact spot where they’d said goodbye. It was seared into their memories, and as they moved out through the main doors of the airport, Holtz grabbed her hand and held firmly, a silent promise that they’d never be apart again.

“I have big news,” Holtz said as they packed their stuff into a taxi that was taking them back to their hotel – the same one Erin and Abby had stayed in, and the exact room to boot.

“Bigger news than how you somehow managed to recreate the best week of our lives?”

“Yuh-huh. But I mean, if you want to focus on that, that’s also cool.”

The taxi pulled out into the road and Erin made a hand gesture that encouraged the blonde to continue.

“I left my job at NASA.”

Erin’s hand flailed, a knee-jerk reaction that almost ended up causing her to smack Holtz in the face. Holtz laughed and grabbed both of Erin’s hands, kissing her palms to settle the older woman.

“Relax.”

“You left your job? Why? For what? You _love_ working at NASA. Robots in space!”

“Er. Seriously, I’m gonna need you to dial it back down to, like, a five, okay? Can you do that for me, anxiety cat?”

“I’m calm.”

“You’re maybe a seven calm.”

Erin breathed and Holtz leaned in to kiss her gently, not stopping until she felt the redhead’s shoulders slump and a long sigh leave her mouth when they parted. The physicist’s eyes were cloudy, glazed over with an obvious flicker of lust, and Holtz nibbled a full bottom lip as she retreated after one last kiss.

“Better,” Holtz confirmed, then continued. “Apparently the new dude Columbia hired to head GISS sucks. Your Dean called me last month and offered me a shitload of money to come back. Apparently that guy – I don’t know his name, don’t care – was only on a temporary contract, six months, and I’m gonna finish out the school year right after spring break. The students are pumped. I hope you will be, too.”

“But money is only so much, and you made plenty of it at NASA. It had to have been a hard decision. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Erin, you’re in New York. I got a lot of money for my apartment, too, when I sold it. I kinda figured I’d have a place to live with you. It wasn’t exactly rocket surgery.”

“You sold your---“

“Spoiler alert, I’m homeless.”

“You’re not homeless because _obviously_ you can move in with me,” Erin said, stroking the blonde’s cheek as she grinned wildly, the picture of deviance that came with youthful recklessness. She looked like she couldn’t be prouder of the decisions she’d made, and Erin knew that while it was a lot to sacrifice, it was all for them.

“Well, ‘cause Patty said if you got pissed I could live in their spare room, but I was hopeful.”

“Also, rocket surgery?”

“Uh-huh, I worked at NASA.”

“It’s rocket science. That’s how the phrase goes, ‘it’s not rocket science.’ You’re using it wrong.”

“Nah, sweet cheeks. We do surgery on rockets, too. They gave me a scalpel that melts things.”

“That sounds… really dangerous, actually.”

“Eeeeeh,” Holtz held the noise out and shrugged. Erin kissed the tip of her nose, immediately blissful as they watched the sunset over the island and pulled up to their hotel.

“So we really have a whole week here, again?”

“A whole week. Wanna start it the way we did last time?”

“With Shark Bites at the tiki lounge?”

“No,” Holtz said, leaning in to give her lover a deeply passionate kiss that only stopped when their driver cleared his throat, loudly, and gave them a warm, knowing smile when they looked at him, apologetic for holding him up and keeping the meter running because they’d gotten distracted.

Erin got out first and paid, then tipped their driver handsomely and Holtz reached into her pocket, adjusting a small velvet box that had been situated close to her, but not too close that Erin would be able to feel it. She tucked it into the front pocket of her messenger bag, knowing that the redhead would likely pounce her the second they got into their hotel room.

“Holtzy, you coming?”

“Yeah, babe. One second.”

Before she zipped the bag up completely, she took one last peek at the elegant white gold band with sapphires and diamonds making up the centerpiece that she hoped, if all went well, would be situated on Erin’s ring finger by the end of their vacation.

But she wasn’t in any hurry.

They had all the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I'd love to hear your feedback - comments, kudos, what parts you loved/hated, please let me know! You guys have given me such fantastic encouragement, and I'm so pleased to be able to share my little brain musings and craziness with this rad fandom/community.


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